Warrant details 11-year investigation into mom arrested in 4-year-old son's 2013 murder

A new warrant details the 11-year investigation into the 2013 death of a 4-year-old boy in Coral Springs, and what led to the arrest of the boy's mother on a murder charge this month.

Destene Chardoney Simmons, now 34, was arrested St. Lucie County on Aug. 2 on charges of first-degree felony murder and aggravated child abuse on the warrant, which was issued for her arrest on July 9.

She was extradited to Broward County on Friday, and remains behind bars without bond.

Broward Sheriff's Office

The charges are related to the June 10, 2013 death of Simmons' son, 4-year-old Antwan Hope, when Simmons was 23.

Hope had been found dead in Simmons' apartment at 9022 Northwest 28th Drive after she called 911 multiple times.

According to the warrant, Coral Springs Police received a 911 call from a woman who said "Yes, can you send someone to this address?"

When asked what was going on she said "I just need someone to come out" and hung up, and a dispatcher called back but there was no answer.

Around 16 minutes later, another call was received from the same number.

"Yes, I wanted to know if you had someone on the way" the woman said, and gave her address on Northwest 28th Drive.

"I just need someone to come out," she said, before she hung up again.

Officers responded and Simmons met with them outside her apartment and asked her why she called 911.

"Destene Simmons calmly and with no apparent sense of urgency replied that she wanted officers to check on her son, 4-year-old [name redacted] 'to make sure,'" the warrant said.

Officers found Hope unresponsive, lying in a bed with a blue pillow on top of his body next to his face, the warrant said.

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He had blood on his lips and was "cold to the touch with signs of rigor mortis present" and was pronounced dead at the scene, the warrant said.

Simmons agreed to be interviewed by detectives and was brought to the police station.

The Broward Medical Examiner began an investigation into Hope's cause of death and found his lips had reddish dry abrasions that were consistent with trauma, the warrant said.

Simmons denied attempting to perform or performing CPR, the warrant said.

Simmons admitted she had a pending case with the Department of Children and Families involving her son and said DCF had been at her home on June 7, three days before Hope was found dead.

She said on June 9, she'd put her son to bed, and detectives asked her about what had happened after she put her son in bed but she refused to answer.

"I'm not going to talk about that," she said, according to the warrant.

Simmons said she was supposed to return her son to her aunt's house that since since she only had visitation rights due to the pending DCF case, the warrant said.

Simmons told investigators she was going to be evicted for failing to pay rent but hadn't reported it to the DCF case worker that Friday.

On June 6, she'd received a "Three Days Notice to Pay or Vacate" note on her front door from her apartment's owner.

She'd lost her job, was two months past due on rent and was set to be evicted on June 13, three days after her son's death, the warrant said.

Due to those circumstances, she was not in compliance with her DCF plan and was in jeopardy of having her son removed from her custody permanently, the warrant said.

At one point, Simmons refused to answer more questions and simply said "lawyer," the warrant said.

Investigators spoke with Simmons' aunt, who said Hope had been living with her since March 2012 when Simmons lost custody.

The aunt also said Simmons "had begun acting strangely and stopped taking care of herself," the warrant said.

Simmons' mother told detectives that Simmons had just been given unsupervised overnight visitation privileges with her son three weeks before his death.

The mother said Simmons had began acting strangely more than a year before her son's death and on one occasion she witnessed Simmons trying to smother her son with a pillow, the warrant said.

Simmons' mother reported the pillow incident to authorities and DCF removed the son from Simmons' care.

An autopsy was conducted and preliminary findings didn't reveal any anatomical cause of death.

Law enforcement continued their investigation and found multiple complaints had been made to DCF and the Broward Sheriff's Office regarding Simmons.

Among those was the alleged pillow smother incident on June 13, 2011. Simmons' mother heard Hope, who was in a bedroom with Simmons, saying "mommy, stop! Mommy, stop!" and found Simmons holding a pillow over the boy's face, the warrant said.

The mother wrestled with Simmons to get her off the boy and had to call other family members to help her set Simmons off the boy.

She called police, who had Simmons taken for a mental evaluation, also known as Baker Acted. It was noted Simmons had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and depression.

Another incident happened on Dec. 28, 2011, when BSO reported that Simmons made threats to harm someone, whose name was redacted from the warrant. Simmons became angry when someone took her son out of daycare and confronted a person, telling them she would "hurt the boy," the warrant said,

On Jan. 2, 2012, Simmons' mother reported that Simmons and Hope had been missing since Dec. 29, 2011. The mother said Simmons was "distraught" over a pending Child Protective Services investigation into her.

On Jan 11, 2012, the son was removed from Simmons' custody after she had been Baker Acted and had not done follow-up prescribed by hospital staff, and had made verbal threats to harm her son, the warrant said.

A final autopsy report released in August 2013 listed Hope's cause and manner of death as "undetermined" but the investigation remained open.

Hope's father requested another medical expert review the autopsy, and that expert determined the manner of death as "homicide due to an external asphyxia event," the warrant said.

A new detective was assigned the unsolved case in 2022 and that detective met with Rebecca MacDougall, who became Broward's chief medical examiner in 2021, to discuss the conflicting medical opinions of the previous medical examiner and the father's expert, the warrant said.

In November 2023, MacDougall said she'd reviewed the case and it was her opinion that the circumstances surrounding the boy's death "suggest that he was asphyxiated and that the Manner of Death will be amended from Undetermined to Homicide," the warrant said.

Authorities began searching for Simmons with the assistance of the U.S. Marshal's and out-of-state law enforcement but couldn't find her.

In June of 2024 it was learned she had been living in Redmond, Washington, and authorities were able to get her phone number, then used the phone's location to find her, the warrant said.

Coral Springs Police released a statement on Monday, calling the decade-plus-long investigation into Hope's death a "relentless pursuit of justice."

"The arrest marks the culmination of over 11 years of dedicated investigative work by the Coral Springs Police Department’s Crimes Against Persons Unit. Detectives revisited the case numerous times over the years," the statement read. "This arrest brings closure to the family of Antwan Hope Jr., who have waited over 11 years for justice. The Coral Springs Police Department remains committed to bringing justice to all victims, no matter how much time has passed."

Hope's family said they've been waiting a long time for justice.

"Eleven years but it seems like just yesterday," Hope's grandmother, Sharon Walker, told NBC6 on Sunday. "All these years I kept saying, trying to figure out why, why he had to be taken from us like this at a young age."

Walker said the family plans to be in court to see the case through.

"If she’s found guilty and she has to sleep behind bars, her family can come see her, they can visit her," Walker said. "But the thing with us, only thing we can do is go to the graveyard, look at the grass, dirt, and my grandbaby headstone. That’s all we got."