Neighbor reported abuse of 4-year-old to DHS days before police say he was fatally beaten by his mother’s boyfriend

The haunting sounds from the second floor apartment on Reno Street were intensifying each day: the booming music, the maniacal laughs, the sounds of whips, and a toddler’s screams.

Tiajuana Jennings, who lived in the apartment below, said the disturbing noises began in early December, not long after she had seen a woman and her young son move in with her upstairs neighbor, Kevin Spencer.

Spencer, she said, was “crazy” — he had once pulled a gun on her boyfriend and now she believed he was abusing that little boy. So on Dec. 7, she said, she called Philadelphia’s child welfare agency to report the beatings. An employee took down her information, she said, then called back a few minutes later to tell her to call police. Jennings said she feared retribution and was afraid to, and the agency said they would look into it.

But it appears employees never intervened, Assistant District Attorney Josh Myers said Monday. Just days later, police say Spencer beat 4-year-old Damari Carter to death, then stuffed his body in a duffel bag, and left it in an abandoned lot filled with trash.

The new detail, shared during a preliminary hearing Monday, added another troubling layer to the case, and raised questions about the city agency’s handling of Jennings’ report. Myers said additional information about what happened after her call wasn’t yet available, but prosecutors have subpoenaed records from Philadelphia’s Department of Human Services.

Jessica Shapiro, assistant deputy managing director of the city’s Office of Children and Families, said Monday that Damari was not in the custody of DHS, nor was he receiving services at the time of his death.

She said that while the agency is deeply saddened by his death, state law “prevents us from providing further information.”

During Monday’s hearing, law enforcement shared in the greatest detail yet how they say Spencer abused the child — and how the boy’s mother, Dominique Bailey, allowed the abuse and then tried to cover up her son’s death.

Bailey, 30, has been charged with third-degree murder, conspiracy, abuse of corpse, and related crimes, while Spencer, 30, faces first-degree murder and similar crimes. Municipal Court Judge David Shuter on Monday said prosecutors had established sufficient evidence for the case to proceed to trial.

Bailey and Damari moved to Philadelphia from Texas in early 2023 and started living with her father in West Philadelphia. Things were going well, said Frank Bailey. He enjoyed spending time with his grandson, who was nonspeaking, and he and his wife were working on his speech.

Then, in November, Frank Bailey said he realized his daughter was leaving the child alone at home. When he confronted her, he said, Dominique Bailey left angrily with the child. Police said she moved in with Spencer, her new boyfriend, on the 3800 block of Reno Street in Mantua. She did not tell her father where she had moved, he said, and wouldn’t let him see the child.

Dominique Bailey worked as a security guard for the University of Pennsylvania, Myers said, and would leave Damari with Spencer during the day. It was on those afternoons, during the first week of December, Jennings said, that she started to hear what she believed was Spencer yelling, slapping, and stomping, and Damari’s cries.

Myers played a series of disturbing videos. In one, recovered from Spencer’s phone, he is seen towering over Damari, poking the boy’s forehead and ordering him to eat his breakfast. The child stared ahead blankly, nearly unresponsive, as an ABCs song played loudly in the background. Damari had bruises on the side of his face, Myers said.

Other videos, taken by Jennings outside the apartment, appeared to offer an audio of the beatings. They were so disturbing that some in the courtroom covered their ears. Sheriff’s deputies gripped their vests tightly and closed their eyes.

Even amid the violence to her son, Bailey was devoted to Spencer, Myers said, texting him love notes throughout the day.

“You are my whole world,” she wrote.

It’s not clear exactly when Damari died of his injuries, Myers said, but investigators believe it could have been Dec. 8 or 9 — around the time when Jennings said she stopped hearing the child’s cries. Surveillance video showed Spencer leaving the apartment on Dec. 9, with a black Puma duffel bag over his shoulder. It is inside that bag, Myers said, that Damari’s body was later found.

By mid-December, family members were growing concerned they hadn’t seen the child. Bailey told her father, he said, that the boy had been fatally hit by a car. The child’s father, who lives in Texas, was so desperate for information that he called area hospitals and medical examiners, but none had heard of the case.

They were especially suspicious, Frank Bailey said, because his daughter had left her kids with abusive strangers before. A few years ago, he said, another one of her sons appeared to have been seriously beaten, though Dominique Bailey blamed a babysitter. Bailey lost custody of that child, he said, and the boy was adopted by his aunt in Texas.

Eventually, in late December, a reporter from 6abc reached out to Philadelphia police, and an investigation was launched. Bailey and Spencer were arrested and charged in early January. Damari’s body was not recovered until March, when city workers cleaning out a lot discovered the duffel bag.

Bailey’s attorney, Paul DiMaio, said the woman is remorseful and also likely a victim of Spencer’s abuse. She cried throughout the proceeding, and at one point, asked to leave the room to avoid watching the videos of Spencer allegedly beating her son. The judge said no.

Spencer’s attorney declined to comment. Throughout the proceeding, he showed no emotion, appearing, as Myers said he did throughout police interviews, “completely detached.”