murdering her month-old twin girls last week, she lived with her mother, five
siblings and her mother’s boyfriend in a one-bedroom apartment that lacked
electricity.
Her mother, Donna Brown, admitted that she battled a crack addiction.
Sierra’s father wasn’t in the picture.
It wasn’t uncommon for Swann, now 17, to have to pitch in to raise her
younger siblings.
Despite those bleak circumstances, Swann was distraught at age 13 when
Child Protective Services split up her family, according to her godmother,
Vernedia “Shawn” Southers.
To compensate for the love she did not receive at home, Southers said,
Swann turned to boys. Though she was a cute girl with plenty of suitors, one
in particular struck her fancy. Swann and Broadway became inseparable.
Broadway, 24, wasn’t known to hold a job, friends said, and court documents
show he had spent time in jail on minor charges.
Initially, he seemed to care for Swann, Brown said, but the relationship
grew rocky.
“I never really liked him,” said Brown, who acknowledges using crack for
years but proudly shows certificates received for completing drug rehab
programs. “She used to call me and tell me her and Nate got in a fight … and
I’d just tell her come here, come see me, we’ll talk, and I used to tell her
to just leave him alone.”
Maranda Walker, Southers’ 15-year-old daughter, said she and Swann were
best friends. They met because Brown and Southers used to be neighbors.
“We were best friends up until December, up until the first child was
removed,” Maranda said yesterday. “Me and her were best friends for a long
time.”
Before Swann gave birth to the two infants who died, Emonney and Emunnea,
she had another child, Nairaa.
Southers said Swann blamed her when CPS took Nairra, now a toddler. But the
mother of six, who admits she’s a recovering drug addict, said she couldn’t
continue ignoring obvious signs of abuse.
“One time Nairra had bite marks all over her,” Southers said. “She weighed
less than 20 pounds when she was almost 2. One time Nairra came over here and
the whole side of her face was swollen, and her left eye was shut. I was like,
I cannot keep letting her come over here looking worse than the time before.
The baby smelled like pee every time she came. I would take her upstairs to
give her a bath and feed her.”
Swann and Nairra spent a lot of time at Southers’ Cokesbury Avenue home,
but Southers said she didn’t like Broadway and didn’t want him around.
“They’d settle down for the night, and I’d think they were going to stay
but he’d [Broadway] come as late as 1 a.m.,” Southers said. “He would knock on
the basement window where Maranda sleeps, and Sierra would jump up and leave
when he came.”
One day in December, “I called the [Department of Social Services] on the
phone and told them Nairra was here and it looked like her front teeth had
been knocked out,” Southers said. “When Sierra saw them coming she said,
`Shawn, my workers are here, please don’t let them in,’ and then she ran out
the back door with the baby. She was hiding with Nairra in the bushes on the
next street over.”
Southers said one of the two social workers quickly found Swann, who was a
foster home runaway and was pregnant with the twins. The social workers took
Nairra from Swann.
But before the two social workers left Southers’ home, she and her daughter
insist, they told them that Swann was pregnant again.
“They knew she was pregnant,” Southers said. “I have no doubt about that.
I’m not trying to blame Social Services, but if they say they didn’t know she
was pregnant, and that’s what I read in the paper, they knew. I sat here and
told them.”
Department of Social Services spokeswoman Sue Fitzsimmons said last night
she could not confirm Southers’ account.
“We may have been told by somebody that she was pregnant, but I can’t
confirm or deny that at this point,” Fitzsimmons said. “What I’m saying to you
is with runaway teens, it’s hard to give them services if they’re not present
for the services. We don’t lock children up. We don’t have foster homes that
lock children up. We don’t have offices with locks.”
On April 12, Swann gave birth to the twin girls – one was delivered en
route to Johns Hopkins Hospital.
The baby came out into the leg of Swann’s sweat pants, where the newborn
stayed until a doctor removed her, said City Health Commissioner Dr. Peter L.
Beilenson. Brown said her daughter rode in a taxicab to the hospital, where
the other girl was born.
On May 11, a 911 call sent paramedics rushing to 1907 E. 31st St. in
Northeast Baltimore, where Swann, Broadway and the girls lived in the basement
of a vacant rowhouse that lacked such basic necessities as electricity and a
toilet.
The severely malnourished girls were pronounced dead at Hopkins Hospital,
and an autopsy revealed they both had fractured skulls and ribs.
Swann and Broadway are in custody, each charged with two counts of
first-degree murder and child abuse causing death. They have been denied bail.
Brown insists her daughter had a “happy childhood” that included going
shopping, braiding hair for her siblings and neighborhood pals. She said Swann
earned good grades in school and never gave her any trouble.
“Sierra loved children. She loved them,” Brown said. “I can’t see her
hurting them twins.”
Brown’s other children – ages 1 to 14 – are in the custody of relatives and
live in Baltimore. She said she’s working to “get them back” although she
admits rarely seeing Swann while the girl lived in foster homes.
The two last spoke Sunday, when Swann called Brown from jail to wish her
mother a happy birthday.
Now Brown awaits one more call – from a woman who’s trying to help with
funeral arrangements for the twins, who Swann wants to have cremated.
The girls’ ashes are supposed to remain with Brown.
