Once a month, Dakota Levi Stevens’ family and supporters show up at the intersection of Indiana 149 and US 6 in Portage Township and occupy the sidewalks at the busy intersection.
Over the past few months, their reasons for the public showing as they seek justice for Dakota’s death have shifted somewhat, but they are still grappling with why Dakota, 10, died in foster care in late April in a Liberty Township home.
On Saturday, they held signs with QR codes that linked to online petitions that are part of their quest and signs that decried the sentence for reckless homicide, a Level 5 felony, which is one to six years.
Jennifer Lee Wilson, 48, was charged with reckless homicide in Dakota’s death on July 12. A warrant was issued for her arrest when she was charged, and police in Berrien County and New Buffalo, Michigan, arrested her the night of July 13.
She bonded out of the Porter County Jail on July 17 after posting a $20,000 cash bond; she is scheduled for a hearing at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday before Magistrate Ana Osan. Her case has been assigned to Porter Superior Court Judge Mary DeBoer.
“My grief was anger and I didn’t know what to do with it, and this was my outlet,” said Eva Parrish of Gary, one of Dakota’s aunts.
She held a megaphone, occasionally using it to project “Justice for Dakota!” to passing cars. She and the other protesters, wearing T-shirts that memorialize Dakota with his picture and “Forever 10,” garnered occasional honks from the traffic.
She organized the first protest in late May and another in late June, as she and others awaited charges against Wilson who, according to court documents, “laid on his midsection” for several minutes outside her home because Dakota was “acting up.” Wilson contacted the boy’s caseworker and her husband for video calls while she lay on the child until he stopped breathing on April 25.
Wilson weighed 340 pounds and Dakota weighed 91 pounds, according to charging documents.
Dakota died on April 27 at South Bend Memorial Hospital. The St. Joseph County Coroner’s Office ruled his death a homicide and said he died from mechanical asphyxiation.
Saturday, Parrish and other family members, including Dakota’s grandmother, said they want the Porter County Prosecutor’s Office to consider additional charges against Wilson, including child abuse and neglect, and a harsher penalty if Wilson is found guilty.
“The days of us being reunited will never happen. It’s been really hard on my daughter and it’s been really hard on my husband,” Parrish said. “That’s why we’re out here, because he doesn’t have a voice. We have to be his voice.”
Dakota, who’s called Levi by family, was removed from his parents’ home when he was 5 years old because of their drug abuse, the boy’s family said, and his father has since died.
Family members tried to retain custody of him but he was placed in foster care. In the years before his death, Dakota bounced between his relatives’ homes and foster care, as well as mental health facilities.
“Levi was never traumatized until he got in the system,” said the boy’s grandmother, Melissa Mahler of Gary, one of the family members who housed Dakota and his younger sister, who was later adopted. “One day he woke up and nobody he loved was around him no more. He was only 5 years old.”
Relatives said he was staying with an aunt before he was placed in Wilson’s home on April 5.
Wilson, according to charging documents, told police that Dakota ran away after an argument about him doing chores before he went outside to play.
Shortly before Wilson found Dakota, he asked a neighbor to adopt him “because his parents hit him in the face and didn’t let him call his caseworker,” according to the charging documents. The neighbor said she didn’t see any signs of injury.
The protest caught the attention of June Reister of South Haven, who pulled into one of the gas stations at the intersection to grab the QR code for the petitions on her phone. She’s been following Dakota’s story “from the get-go because I’m a mom and I used to be a foster parent.”
Reister was a foster parent for three years and now works with people with developmental disabilities.
“You’re not allowed to sit on them. That’s abuse,” she said, referring to the allegations against Wilson. “You’re not supposed to do that. I’m not sure how she got to be a foster parent.”
Officials with the Indiana Department of Child Services have said Wilson’s foster care license was placed on hold after Dakota’s death was ruled a homicide. Her license was revoked on June 30.
Officials with the office have said that Wilson had been licensed since 2017 and was in good standing before Dakota’s death, “having completed the required training and education required to achieve and maintain licensure.” She did not have other foster children in the home at the time.
One of the online petitions on change.org calls for DCS to be held responsible for the deaths of foster children in their care, and for more training for foster parents to prevent the deaths of future children. Another petition calls for an upgrade in the charges against Wilson.
The third petition demands the removal of Robert Wilson, Jennifer Wilson’s husband, as the principal of Lake Ridge New Tech Middle School because, as an educator, he is a mandated reporter of child abuse under state law. He was on a video call with his wife while she was on top of Dakota, according to the charges.
Robert Wilson has not been charged in Dakota’s death. Superintendent Sharon Johnson-Shirley and the School Board of Trustees stated in a release on July 17 that the school district “is committed to ensuring the safety and security of all students,” and officials are aware of the criminal case against his wife.
“No charges are filed against Mr. Wilson, nor are any anticipated,” the statement noted. “Lake Ridge New Tech Schools has not received any reports that would cause suspicion about Mr. Wilson’s qualifications as an educator to ensure the safety and security of Lake Ridge students.
“While we understand that the legal proceedings affect Mr. Wilson’s family, Lake Ridge will continue to monitor these proceedings as any determination is made related to Mr. Wilson’s wife.”
As traffic whizzed by on US 6, Dakota’s family said they wanted to see justice served for the boy they would never see grow up.
“Our voice is his voice now. She took his voice away,” said Mary Snell, a cousin who lives in Gary. “That’s all we’re trying is, to be his voice.”
alavalley@chicagotribune.com
