Arrest warrant details 11-year investigation into mother arrested for 2013 murder of her 4-year-old son – NBC 6 South Florida

A new arrest warrant details the 11-year investigation into the 2013 death of a 4-year-old boy in Coral Springs and sheds light on what led to the arrest of the boy’s mother on murder charges this month.

Destene Chardoney Simmons, now 34, was arrested in St. Lucie County on August 2 on charges of first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse. The warrant for her arrest was issued on July 9.

She was extradited to Broward County on Friday and remains behind bars without bail.

The charges are related to the death of Simmons’ son, 4-year-old Antwan Hope, on June 10, 2013, when Simmons was 23 years old.

Hope was found dead in Simmons’ apartment at 9022 Northwest 28th Drive after she made multiple calls to 911.

According to the arrest warrant, Coral Springs police received a 911 call from a woman who said, “Yes, can you send someone to this address?”

When asked what was going on, she said, “Someone just has to come over,” and hung up. A switchboard operator called back, but no one answered.

About 16 minutes later, another call came in from the same number.

“Yes, I wanted to know if anyone was out,” the woman said, giving her address on Northwest 28th Drive.

“I just need someone to come out,” she said before hanging up.

Officers responded and Simmons met them outside her apartment and asked her why she had called 911.

“Destene Simmons answered calmly and without any apparent pressure that she wanted the officers to check on her son, the 4-year-old [name redacted] ‘to be sure,'” the arrest warrant states.

Officers found Hope lying unconscious in a bed with a blue pillow on his body next to his face, the warrant said.

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He had blood on his lips, felt “cold and showed signs of rigor mortis” and was pronounced dead at the scene, the arrest warrant said.

Simmons agreed to be questioned by detectives and was taken to the police station.

The Broward County Medical Examiner opened an investigation into Hope’s cause of death and found that his lips had reddish, dry abrasions consistent with trauma, the warrant said.

Simmons denied attempting to perform CPR or even doing so, the arrest warrant said.

Simmons acknowledged that there is a case pending with the Department of Children and Families regarding her son and said DCF was at her home on June 7, three days before Hope was found dead.

She said she put her son to bed on June 9 and detectives asked her what happened after she put her son to bed, but she refused to answer.

“I won’t talk about that,” she said, according to the arrest warrant.

Simmons said she should have taken her son back to her aunt’s house because she only had visitation rights due to the pending DCF case, the warrant said.

Simmons told investigators she was facing eviction for non-payment of rent, but did not report it to the DCF caseworker on Friday.

On June 6, she found a note on her front door from the owner of her apartment that read, “Three days to pay or be evicted.”

She had lost her job, was two months behind on rent and was scheduled to be evicted on June 13, three days after her son’s death, the warrant said.

Due to these circumstances, she failed to comply with her DCF plan and there is a risk that she will be permanently deprived of custody of her son, the arrest warrant states.

At one point, Simmons refused to answer further questions and simply said “attorney,” the arrest warrant states.

Investigators spoke to Simmons’ aunt, who said Hope had lived with her since March 2012, when Simmons lost custody.

The aunt also said Simmons “started acting strange and stopped taking care of himself,” the arrest warrant states.

Simmons’ mother told investigators that Simmons had been granted unsupervised overnight visitation rights with her son three weeks before his death.

The mother said Simmons began acting strangely more than a year before her son’s death, and she once saw Simmons try to smother her son with a pillow, the warrant states.

Simmons’ mother reported the pillow incident to authorities and DCF removed Simmons’ son from his custody.

An autopsy was performed and preliminary results showed no anatomical cause of death.

Law enforcement continued their investigation and discovered that DCF and the Broward Sheriff’s Office had received multiple complaints regarding Simmons.

That included the alleged pillow suffocation incident on June 13, 2011. Simmons’ mother heard Hope, who was in the bedroom with Simmons, say, “Mommy, stop! Mommy, stop!” and found Simmons holding a pillow in front of the boy’s face, the warrant states.

The mother struggled with Simmons to get her off the boy and had to call other family members to help her get Simmons off the boy.

She called the police, who took Simmons for a psychiatric evaluation, also known as the Baker Act. It was determined that Simmons had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and depression.

Another incident occurred on December 28, 2011, when BSO reported that Simmons had threatened to harm someone whose name was removed from the warrant. Simmons became angry when someone took her son from daycare and confronted a person, telling her she was “going to hurt the boy,” the warrant states.

On January 2, 2012, Simmons’ mother reported that Simmons and Hope had been missing since December 29, 2011. The mother said Simmons was “distraught” because of an impending Child Protective Services investigation into her.

On January 11, 2012, Simmons’ son was removed from her mother’s custody after she was charged with a Baker Act, failed to complete follow-up exams ordered by hospital staff, and verbally threatened to harm her son, the arrest warrant states.

A final autopsy report released in August 2013 listed Hope’s cause and manner of death as “undetermined,” but the investigation remained open.

Hope’s father requested another medical expert to review the autopsy, and that expert determined the cause of death to be “homicide by external asphyxiation,” the warrant states.

In 2022, a new detective was assigned the unsolved case, and that detective met with Rebecca MacDougall, who became Broward’s chief medical examiner in 2021, to discuss the conflicting medical opinions of the previous doctor and the father’s expert, the warrant states.

In November 2023, MacDougall said she had reviewed the case and believed the circumstances of the boy’s death “result in him being asphyxiated and the manner of death being changed from ‘undetermined’ to ‘death,'” the warrant said.

Authorities began searching for Simmons with assistance from the U.S. Marshal and law enforcement agencies from other states, but were unable to locate her.

In June 2024, it was revealed that she had been living in Redmond, Washington. Authorities managed to find her phone number and then tracked her down using the phone’s location, the warrant said.

Coral Springs police released a statement Monday calling the more than decade-long investigation into Hope’s death a “tireless pursuit of justice.”

“The arrest marks the culmination of over 11 years of dedicated investigative work by the Coral Springs Police Department’s Crimes Against Persons Unit. Investigators have re-examined the case multiple times over the years,” the statement said. “This arrest brings closure to the family of Antwan Hope Jr., who has waited over 11 years for justice. The Coral Springs Police Department remains committed to bringing justice to all victims, no matter how much time has passed.”

Hope’s family said they have waited a long time for justice.

“Eleven years, but it seems like just yesterday,” Hope’s grandmother Sharon Walker told NBC6 on Sunday. “All these years I’ve been trying to figure out why, why he had to be taken from us at such a young age.”

Walker said the family plans to pursue the case in court.

“If she’s found guilty and has to sleep behind bars, her family can come visit her,” Walker said. “But for us, the only thing we can do is go to the cemetery, look at the grass, the dirt and my grandson’s headstone. That’s all we have.”