A Los Angeles man pleaded not guilty Thursday to murder and assault charges stemming from his 2-year-old son’s death.
Durrell Diontae Daniels, now 34, is charged with one count each of murder and assault on a child causing death in connection with the June 6, 2019, death of his son, Legacy, who was one of a set of triplets.
An autopsy concluded that the toddler died from drowning by being intentionally submerged in a bathtub and blunt head trauma, according to Deputy District Attorney Jonathan Hatami.
At a hearing last December, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Michael E. Pastor ruled there was sufficient evidence to allow the case against Daniels to proceed to trial.
Anise King testified during the Dec. 15 hearing that she was asked that day to perform CPR on the boy, but said she didn’t touch him because he already seemed dead. She described the father’s demeanor as “very” calm.
Paramedics were subsequently sent to the apartment in the 200 block of South Whitmer Street after 911 was called.
Los Angeles Police Department Noe Lopez told the judge at that hearing that Daniels told him that he had been in the bathtub with his two sons and that the toddler was splashing water and began choking.
Another LAPD officer, Christina Johnson, also testified at the hearing in December that Daniels subsequently told her that his two sons were splashing around in the tub and that Legacy began choking after being splashed with water.
In emotional testimony, the toddler’s mother, Tywona Wade, told Pastor that Daniels had taken the two boys from her as she returned from the store about a week and a half earlier, and that she had told him that morning that the boys should be home with her for her 10-year-old child’s graduation.
“I wanted my kids, period,” she said. “He knew that.”
When asked if they weren’t seeing eye-to-eye, she responded, “It’s still like that, period. We’ve never seen eye-to-eye.”
Daniels was arrested by Los Angeles police in October 2020 and remains behind bars in lieu of $2 million bail, according to jail records.
He is due back in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom for a pretrial hearing Jan. 25.