Background: A section of the 2200 block of Aiken Street in Baltimore, Maryland (Google Maps). Insets (from left to right): Bernice Byrd and Gerald Byrd (Baltimore Police Department).
A Maryland mother”s and father’s failure to feed their children forced one of them to scrounge through their school’s garbage for food and resulted in another child dying, authorities say.
Bernice Byrd, 33, and Gerald Byrd, 36, pleaded guilty to first-degree child abuse resulting in death and first-degree child abuse in connection with the death of 5-year-old Zona Byrd, the Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office announced on Thursday. State’s Attorney Ivan Bates was scathing in his reaction to the defendants’ actions, though pleased that “justice” was delivered.
“No punishment will be as severe for these defendants as living with the knowledge that they murdered their innocent child,” Bates said. “Today’s guilty plea does ensure the safety of Zona’s siblings, who are also victims of their parents’ horrific actions.”
The state’s attorney added that “the facts of this case are nauseating.”
On Oct. 14, 2024, at a home on the 2200 block of Aiken Street in Baltimore, someone called 911, saying a 5-year-old child was “unresponsive” and found “lying in a bed” on the home’s second floor, “cold to the touch.”
The Baltimore Police Department arrived at the home and found Zona. She was pronounced dead at 12:50 p.m.
Police noted that three other children were in the home, and they were all brought to nearby Johns Hopkins Medical Center “for evaluation.” One of the kids was Zona’s 6-year-old brother, and he “appeared emaciated and could barely stand or walk when he was discovered at the scene.”
Zona herself “weighed only 17.5 pounds,” the autopsy revealed, with the state’s attorney’s office noting that “[n]o evidence was found during their examination of any sort of physical trauma that could have resulted in her death.” Like her brother, she “appeared severely emaciated and extremely malnourished,” and the clothes she was wearing “were observed to be much too large for her, and detectives later reported that she had no muscle tone.”
As police investigated the family’s home, they noticed that “all the kitchen cupboards were completely bare of any food.” Though the freezer contained frozen meat, “the only item in the refrigerator was a salad.” Furthermore, while the parents had kept “several non-perishable food items” on the second floor, those items were behind their bedroom door and closet, both of which were locked.
Investigators asked Bernice and Gerald Byrd when was the last time Zona “was provided food and nourishment, but neither would take responsibility for feeding the child, and neither could account for when they last fed the victim,” prosecutors said. “Detectives later discovered that one of the surviving children was seen going through garbage at their school in an attempt to find food.”
The parents were arrested.
The three other children in the home who were brought to the hospital were given food there, “and doctors and detectives noted that they ate quickly and intently,” the state’s attorney’s office said. The 6-year-old boy weighed just 35 pounds, and he was treated at the hospital until Oct. 26, 2024.
Bernice Byrd and Gerald Byrd are set to be sentenced on June 10. They face a maximum penalty of life in prison.
