Detroit — When a Detroit police officer saw 9-year-old Owen Rosario at the hospital just before he died, Owen was bruised, scarred and scratched "pretty much head to toe."
Owen's guardians, Sherman Devaughn Jones, 46, and his wife, Sampaguita Jones, 41, had brought him to the hospital after they found Owen unresponsive, said Officer Ibn-Ameer Shakoor. Owen had been sick with a cough, but the Joneses told Shakoor they didn't think it was anything serious.
But Dr. Bradley Norat, a child abuse pediatrician at Detroit Children's Hospital, said Owen had an infection of the fluid surrounding his lungs, which typically comes from pneumonia spreading from the lungs over the course of several weeks, Norat said. He would have been struggling to breathe, had a fever and a cough and would have been lethargic, or difficult to arouse. The more serious the infection became, Norat said, the more Owen would have struggled to breathe.
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"If Owen had gotten medical treatment weeks earlier, do you think he still would’ve succumbed to his injuries?" Assistant Prosecutor Brittany Johnson asked Norat this week during the first day of the Joneses' preliminary examination to determine if there is enough evidence for them to stand trial.
"No," Norat said. "If he’s not able to take that big breath, if he’s not able to cough out any infection trying to get out of his body ... (and) the more widespread something is, the more difficult it is for the body to recover from that."
The Joneses are charged with felony murder, torture and involuntary manslaughter in connection with Owen's death in September of 2024. Prosecutors allege they neglected and physically assaulted Owen, resulting in his death.
After two days of testimony in Detroit's 36th District Court this week, the preliminary exam will resume Nov. 14 with a last witness, arguments from attorneys for both sides and a decision by Judge Shawn Jacque.
Owen died of pneumonia on Sept. 19, 2024, Wayne County Chief Medical Examiner Dr. LokMan Sung testified Tuesday, though he also had scars and healing abrasions covering his body and was malnourished for his size and age. Sung said he classified Owen's death as a homicide.
“Homicide is when the actions or inactions of one individual results in death of another individual,” Sung said. “In this case, this is a pediatric case in which child would be dependent on medical care being provided. … It was the inactions of an individual that resulted in Mr. Owen Rosario's death.”
Sampaguita’s attorney Vincent Haisha and Sherman's attorney Adam Clements both argued for a lower bond for the couple. Haisha said the only thing prosecutors have to stand on is the involuntary manslaughter, based on Sungs’ determination that the homicide was caused by the inaction of Owen’s caretakers. This is not enough to sustain a felony murder charge, he said.
Clements said there is no evidence that directly links Sherman to Owen's abuse, let alone the torture of Owen.
“Inaction is not sufficient for torture. You have to do it yourself,” Clements said. “And the evidence is that he did neither.”
Owen Rosario, 9 Marjeet Bains
But Johnson said the Joneses “just let him sit there and drown in his own mucus and die.”
“He is black and blue from head to toe. There are marks from the tip of his toes to the top of his head. These are injuries that would be obvious for anyone caring for him,” Johnson said. “This pneumonia would not have been deadly if someone had simply called a doctor, a hospital.”
Jacque, the judge, did not give the Jones' bond and continued to remand them to the Wayne County Jail without bail.
Guardianship of Owen
Owen's biological mother, Marjeet Bains, agreed to give temporary guardianship of her son to Sampaguita and Sherman Jones in 2018 when Bains lived with the couple in Chicago to help her get back on her feet. Bains was in her early 20s and had an open case with the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services.
Jones told Bains that she did not want DCFS in her house, so she suggested Bains give them guardianship of Owen. Bains agreed, she said, because she had no other support and didn't know what else to do. Four months later, the Joneses moved from Chicago to Detroit, Bains said. Bains moved with them, not wanting to abandon then-2-year-old Owen.
The guardianship expired in May 2019 and then Owen was supposed to go back to her, Bains said. But by then, she had moved back to Chicago because she knew no one except the Joneses in Detroit and had no outside support system.
Sherman and Sampaguita Jones petitioned in June 2019 to continue to be Owen's guardian in Wayne County, and their request was granted. The same day, Bains reported to the Detroit Police Department that the Joneses were ignoring her requests to get her son back, according to a DPD police report.
Bains said DPD told her the dispute over Owen was a civil matter and they could not help her.
Bains saw Owen several times after Wayne County Probate Court granted the Joneses guardianship of Owen, she said, but she last saw him around the end of 2021, around the same time as the Joneses' legal guardianship was suspended in October 2021. She felt like the Jones' were withholding Owen from her, making excuses as to why she couldn't visit or speak on the phone with him.
"They kept him away from me a lot," Bains said. "Slowly they started taking him out of my life, and they started ignoring me, ignoring my phone calls, text messages."
The Joneses' guardianship of Owen was terminated in February 2022, but Owen remained living with them until his death in September 2024.
"I'm not perfect, but at the same time, I loved my son, and I tried to be in his life," Bains said. "If something is wrong with your child or something is wrong with you, you need to go to medical professional. ... You didn't care about my son's well being, didn't look out for his health, didn't get him the treatment he needed."
Too many scars to count
Norat said Owen had multiple scars across his abdomen, "too many scars to count individually." Many had a curved appearance, which often stems from being struck with a flexible object like some type of cord.
Owen also had two broken ribs that were several weeks old, a fracture on his shoulder blade, a dislocated right elbow that would have made it difficult to move his arm and a broken bone in his hand near his pinky, Norat said.
"Rib fractures are very, very painful. So coughing, taking a deep breath, those would be things that were difficult for him," Norat said. "The injuries we see are highly concerning of non-accidental trauma."
Johnson walked Sung, the medical examiner, through a slideshow of photos from Owen’s autopsy, and with every photo, Sung pointed out healed scars, healing abrasions or bruises. On the back of Owen’s head, Sung shaved his hair off, revealing three circles of red and purple scarring, about a square inch large.
"(These scars) could come from something as innocuous and innocent as horseplay, correct?" Haisha asked.
"Yes," Sung said.
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Detroit 9-year-old was covered in scars, wounds 'head to toe' at time of death
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