Last Friday there were several stories about this tragic incident on Merust Lane, which is west of Goshen Road, north of Centerway and a bit south of the power line right of way. The address seemed familiar, and doing a bit of checking I found that Darryl Powell, now accused of murdering his son, lives at the same address on Merust Lane as Anton Powell, who was accused last July of committing a murder in Germantown. Those murder charges were dropped the following August, however Anton Powell remains charged, in an unrelated incident, with armed robbery and first degree assault. According to court records, the 21-year old Anton Powell did not show up for a scheduled court hearing last Thursday, the day a warrant was issued for the arrest of Darryl Powell following the death of Zjaire Williams. Anton Powell has the proverbial “record as long as your arm,” and was out on multiple paroles at the time of the incidents last Summer. As best as I could determine, the only items currently showing up in the court records for Darryl Powell are the current arrest for first degree murder, and a paternity case from February of 2007.
Dan Morse writes in the Washington Post:
A 2-year-old Montgomery County boy known among family members for his constant smile and his habit of putting a baseball cap on backward at the start of each day was killed by his teenage father this week, police alleged yesterday.
Darryl E. Powell, 17, has been charged with first-degree murder in the death of , who was found with bruises on his body and cuts to his lips inside Powell’s home Wednesday, police said. Zjaire, whose name was pronounced Zaire, lived with his mother and grandmother in Damascus but had spent the night at his father’s residence.
About 6:20 a.m. Wednesday, police and rescue workers went to Powell’s residence in the 9400 block of Merust Lane in Gaithersburg in response to a 911 call about an “unresponsive infant,” county police said. Zjaire was taken to Shady Grove Adventist Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.