Community honors Darnell Gray, pushes for justice six years after his death
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (KMIZ)
People in Jefferson City gathered in Community Park on Friday evening to honor the life of Darnell Gray.
Friday marked the sixth anniversary of Gray’s death after the toddler was allegedly struck and smothered to death by his caretaker.
The event -- put on by Missouri Missing and In the Gap Ministries -- featured food, entertainment, a bounce house, rock painting, guest speakers and a prayer service. Event organizers said the goal is to raise awareness of mental health resources available in the community and to get justice for Gray.
“We want to bring the focus to mental illness in our community,” Mary Williams-Coley, of In the Gap ministries, said. “We want our community to know that we stand in the gap and we have resources that you're not alone. That's what sparked this from that a testament for him.”
“We want justice for him,” Sean Earley, treasurer for Missouri Missing, said.
Earley said that Missing Missouri want Gray's alleged killer to face consequences for their actions.
"And then we want to make awareness and bring the resources to people that don’t realize what’s out there.” he said.
Quatavia Givens was charged with first-degree murder, child abuse, first-degree endangering the welfare of a child and abandoning a corpse in relation to the death of 4-year-old Gray in 2018.
Gray's body was found in the 2100 block of Louis Circle in October 2018, after several days of searches involving police and volunteers. Givens initially told police he was missing and helped the search party look for him, according to court documents and previous reporting.
Cole was one of the volunteers who took part in the search for Gray.
“We just thought that from the interview that she gave, that he could possibly still be alive and to know that he was out there, that we needed to get him home,” Williams-Coley said. “ I had a niece whose son got murdered, ran over by a car. Just to hear the yell that came out of her when she seen her baby in a casket, to know that a mom is missing a baby. If you're a mom, you know that that is a really close bond. And so that’s what made me get up and get out there.”
Givens was admitted to Fulton State Hospital on June 18, court records indicate. Givens was deemed incompetent to stand trial on Aug. 14, 2023, and had been waiting to enter the Department of Mental Health care. A DMH examination is required to be filed by Saturday, Jan. 18, 2025, court documents say. A case review is set for 9 a.m. Thursday, Feb. 6, 2025.
Givens -- who has been previously described as a caretaker -- was accused of killing Gray in October 2018. Court documents say she initially reported Gray as being abducted or that he had run away from her house in the 1100 block of Buena Vista Street in Jefferson City.
The boy was missing for six days before he was located by local law enforcement in the 2100 block of Louis Circle in Jefferson City. A grand jury's indictment charged Givens with first-degree murder when it was revealed that Gray had been suffocated.
