Files Released in Delray Sibling Deaths Case

Man admitted to killing woman and two children to acquaintance: Files

A man charged in the deaths of two children found stuffed in luggage admitted the killings to a longtime acquaintance and enlisted the help of his teenage son to dump their bodies in a South Florida canal, according to police investigative files released by prosecutors.
 
Clem Beauchamp, 35, is awaiting trial in the deaths of the children and their mother, although a court date has not been set. He currently is serving a 10-year prison sentence on an unrelated federal gun charge.
 
The documents indicate Beauchamp made the statement after sharing a courthouse holding cell with a man he grew up with, Arthur Lee Harmon, according to Harmon's statement to detectives.
 
Beauchamp expressed remorse for the children's deaths but not for allegedly killing their mother, Harmon said.
 
"That b---- deserved to die,'' Harmon recalled Beauchamp saying. "But the kids - I don't know why I did that to the kids."
 
Yet in hours of questioning by police, Beauchamp insisted his innocence, as he has publicly ever since.
 
"I wouldn't do nothin' like that," he told officers, according to a transcript. "I wouldn't help nobody do nothing like that."
 
The Criminal Conflict and Civil Regional Counsel Office, which is representing Beauchamp on the murder charges, did not immediately return a message Thursday seeking comment on the new documents. That office was assigned to his case because the public defender's office is representing Michelle Dent, the woman Beauchamp was living with at the time of the deaths, a girlfriend who is the mother of his two children.
 
Harmon told police that Beauchamp crossed his arms in a hugging gesture to show how he allegedly killed 6-year-old Ju'tyra Allen, saying, "He say he grabbed her and he just, just held until she, when she stopped breathing." The little girl's autopsy shows she died of asphyxia.
 
The accounts are contained in about 1,000 pages of police documents released by prosecutors this week detailing everything from extensive analysis on the duct tape found on Ju'Tyra's body to the type of pornographic websites Beauchamp frequented.
 
The documents also include detectives' interviews with Beauchamp's then-15-year-old son, Demetrius Beauchamp, who said he helped his father load two very heavy pieces of luggage into a car and then toss them in the C-15 canal, which runs between Delray Beach and Boca Raton.
 
"This is a good workout," the teen said his father told him. The boy said he didn't know what was in the bags and never asked.
 
Another child, Keyana Beauchamp, who was 10 at the time of the deaths, told police she remembered her father coming home late the night after the two children were last seen with his shirt ripped and bloodied.
 
The children's bodies were found - the girl in a duffel bag, her 10-year-old brother Jermaine McNeil in a suitcase - on March 2, 2011, in a canal bordered by modest homes, tiny wooden docks and small motor boats, and dotted on either side with the lush green of palms and other trees.
 
It was only after the children's bodies turned up that detectives were able to identify their mother, Felicia Brown, whose body turned up in a West Palm Beach landfill about seven months earlier. Her identity was finally made, in part, by her children's names that were tattooed on her body.
 
In interviews with police, Beauchamp portrayed himself as an ideal role model to the two children he is charged with killing, saying he taught the girl to swim and ride a bike and would bring both to the park. He proclaimed his love for them, saying they're like his own children and says they look up to him as their own father.
 
Yet he also suggested their presence in his house caused strain, saying money was tight and food was short, and that he saw the two children differently than his biological ones.
 
"You know, I love them, but it's it's different. It's like it was, like, straining, you know?" he told authorities.
 
At another point under questioning, Beauchamp said: "You're trying to be the Brady Bunch but, you know, it just the time and financial aspect of it."
 
He repeatedly insisted to his questioners the children went to live with their mother, Brown, and a man he knew only as ``Mike.'' He admitted, though he felt some sadness about them leaving the house, he was somewhat happy to see them go.
 
Detectives kept probing to determine who Mike was, but Beauchamp never gave an answer that pleased them.
 
"There's no Mike. There's no Mike," Detective Jason Jabcuga of the Delray Beach Police said.
 
"You're lying. You're lying. And you know you're lying," said his colleague, Detective Peter Sosa.
 
At one point under questioning, Beauchamp sobbed, the files note.
 
Elsewhere in the voluminous case file, detectives note the floral-print suitcase that Jermaine was found in appeared identical to one seen in a bedroom closet at Beauchamp's home and recorded on video by ATF agents who had visited a year before the children's deaths.
 
After their disappearance, the suitcase was not found in the home.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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