An emotional young mother placed two small, silver urns on a table as she walked up to the front of a crowded Ramsey County District courtroom Monday to address the judge.
Inside were the remains of her 5-month-old baby boy, who died in St. Paul last January after his then-19-year-old baby sitter, Tyanna Jabree Graham, shook him.
Whitney Dunagan told Judge Nicole Starr that she wanted to bring them because she wasn’t allowed to bring pictures to Graham’s sentencing. Her son Ja’mir’s face was printed on the front of the shirt she was wearing though, below the words “Mommy’s Angel.”
“I just know you took my whole life,” Dunagan said to Graham before breaking down in her grandmother’s arms.
Though she remained at the front of the courtroom for several minutes longer, she wasn’t able to say anything more despite Starr telling her several times she was willing to wait for as long as Dunagan needed.
Instead, Dunagan cried and stared ahead as her grandmother, Catherine Booker, tried to describe the family’s loss. In addition to Booker, three of Ja’mir’s aunts spoke.
Graham pleaded guilty to one count of second-degree unintentional murder in the infant’s death in September. She was sentenced to nearly 11 years in prison Monday in accordance with the terms of a plea deal with the state.
“There are no words other than this will affect our lives forever,” Booker said.
Ja’mir was her first great-grandchild, she said, and Dunagan’s only child.
“He never had a chance. She took an innocent baby’s life. There is no excuse,” Booker continued. “We never get to see him walk, talk, get his first teeth. Nothing … She trusted this person with her baby, and it hurts.”
Other relatives described wrestling with whether to forgive Graham, who several people described as a family friend during the hearing.
“If I didn’t forgive her,” one aunt said during her statement. “Forgiveness isn’t for her; it’s for me.”
Graham, 20, wailed and shook during much of the hearing. When she finally got her chance to speak, she read a letter apologizing to Dunagan and the rest of Ja’mir’s family.
“I never wanted to hurt Ja’mir. He was like one of my own,” Graham said. “I made a mistake … Whitney, I am so sorry for taking him away from you so soon … You lost your heart because of me. I can never forgive myself for this … He didn’t deserve this.”
The infant was found unresponsive Jan. 28 inside a home in the 2200 block of West Seventh Street by police called to the residence on a report that a child wasn’t breathing.
The boy was taken by ambulance to Children’s Hospital, where doctors discovered he had suffered a severe brain injury. He died the next day.
The Ramsey County medical examiner’s office determined that his death was caused by injuries from an assault. In addition to bleeding in his brain, the infant had bruises and bleeding on his left lung and a cut on his lip.
When interviewed by police, Graham, who had no prior criminal history, initially gave conflicting accounts of his injuries.
She eventually admitted to being frustrated that she had to care for the child when she wanted to go out that night and said she may have “blacked out” and shaken him for 3 to 5 seconds,according to court documents.
Judge Starr addressed the pain on both sides of the case during her remarks.
“I’ve never experienced” a case like this, she began.
“It doesn’t matter what you say, there is nothing that will bring back Ja’mir,” Starr said to Graham. “But I want you to know that you are not a bad person … You have done a terrible, terrible thing … (But) you have been honest with yourself and to that extent, I have a lot of hope for you.”
She also addressed Ja’mir’s mother.
“We will not forget him, we simply won’t … this baby that you brought into this world. I promise you that.”