Left: Erica Dotson (Brevard County Sheriff”s Office). Right: Jameson Nance (West Melbourne Police Department).
A Florida woman who allegedly killed her toddler son through a lengthy combination of neglect and abuse – and is said to have once blamed a duck for some of his injuries – will go on trial this week.
Erica Beth Dotson, 31, stands accused of one count each of premeditated murder in the first degree, aggravated manslaughter of a child, aggravated child abuse, and child neglect with great bodily harm, according to Brevard County Sheriff’s Office records.
On July 11, 2021, police responded to a 911 call about a “child not breathing” at an apartment on Lago Circle in West Melbourne, a small city located roughly 70 miles southeast of Orlando.
There, officers were greeted at the stairs by Dotson. She was holding the lifeless body of 3-year-old Jameson Nance in her arms. An autopsy would show the child suffered from prolonged “battered child syndrome” with a litany of injuries inflicted weeks before his death including a broken tooth “pushed into” his gums, a cut on his jaw, a fractured right rib and left arm, a ruptured esophagus, and seven separate stab wounds — some fresh, some healing — to his head, according to an arrest warrant affidavit obtained by Law&Crime.
Love true crime? Sign up for our newsletter, The Law&Crime Docket, to get the latest real-life crime stories delivered right to your inbox.
But some of the abuse Jameson endured was also clear to first responders who met his mother on the second-floor landing that day.
“The Patrol Supervisor immediately determined the child was deceased, as rigor mortis had set in,” the affidavit reads. “The child appeared to be bruised significantly, his face was swollen and there were obvious signs of trauma.”
Dotson would allegedly tell investigators she woke up around 5:15 a.m. and “snuggled” with her son, leaving for work roughly an hour later. The defendant said she talked to her boyfriend, Joshua Andrew Manns, 29, on the phone at around 6 p.m. to discuss something unrelated to her son, according to the affidavit. Then, during a phone call roughly an hour later, Manns allegedly told Dotson not to drive because Jameson was “not good.”
“Over the next several minutes Manns provided a story to [redacted] eventually explaining the child was dead or likely dead having drowned,” the affidavit reads. “Upon learning that Manns had not called 911 or for help in another manner, she herself called 911 as she was frantically driving to the apartment. She arrived only moments before police and found the child on the bathroom floor.”
Eventually, and by the time law enforcement arrived, Manns had left the apartment; he was eventually arrested in Orlando.
Meanwhile, a dispatcher thought to contact the adult who had overseen the boy’s final moments in an effort to give him instructions on how to perform CPR – but by then Manns was already on the lam, police claim. Despite his absence, the boyfriend allegedly left a note saying he had personally suffered a seizure and passed out while giving Jameson a bath. When he woke up, Manns allegedly claimed, the boy was floating in the water, dead. The note insisted Manns performed CPR but “nothing worked,” according to the affidavit.
“Investigators made observations about the apartment that there were empty bottles of children’s Tylenol and dosing cups all over the apartment, as well as rags wrapped around bags of water as if they had been frozen and used as cold compresses,” the affidavit goes on. “The observations led the investigators to believe that the child may have been receiving treatment at home, rather than being taken to a clinic, doctor or hospital.”
The medical examiner determined Jameson died from cardiac arrest. The affidavit notes that “no evidence of drowning” was found.
As it turned out, Sunshine State authorities had been apprised of at least some of Jameson’s treatment well before he died.
In February 2019, the Florida Department of Children and Family Services (DCF) investigated after the boy broke his leg in an “unwitnessed event,” according to the affidavit.
Sometime later, the boy’s biological father filed a petition to establish paternity and secure access to his son — a legal process that was still ongoing when Jameson died, the affidavit explains.
Then, in March 2021, Jameson broke his leg again. And, again, child welfare agents investigated. This time, the adults in the boy’s life claimed he had fallen off a curb. This claim was disputed by the medical examiner after Jameson’s death. The second broken leg led DCF authorities to learn of several “suspicious” incidents in the child’s life – including “injuries to his face” which were discovered the last day he ever attended day care, according to law enforcement.
“The story was that the family had been spending time by the pond and the child fell, rolled into or near the water and was attacked by a duck,” the affidavit continues.
Law enforcement also drew attention to the way Dotson and Manns discussed punishing Jameson in a series of text messages.
From the affidavit at length:
[E]pisodes were frequent, with Manns complaining that the child victim was not using the toilet; this would lead to punishment of the child and Manns would complain that the child would hit Josh (6′ tall, 200 lbs), head-butt him and bite him. This would cause for more punishment of the child with [redacted] being aware and [redacted] texting her support of Josh when dealing with [redacted] such as “Love you, appreciate you always dealing with him for me.” Another time after Manns had texted her that “he’s in big trouble” “he (victim) was losing it, going crazy,” with [redacted] texting during this episode “F’him,” “he’s being a jerk, put him to bed, no fun today” at 1:00 pm. While many of their text messages ended with “I love you” to each other, during the texts the child victim was referred to as a “jerk” or “sorry he’s being suc[h] a d—.”
Specifically, prosecutors claim Manns had long abused Jameson while Dotson knew and did nothing to stop it. Their trials were severed by a judge in June.
The mother’s trial begins on Wednesday.
