BALTIMORE – “Mommy, no!”
That’s what neighbors of Jameria Hall said they heard the night of Aug. 19, five days before the bodies of her children Da’Neria, 6, and Davin Thomas, 8, were found inside their Southwest Baltimore apartment.
Charging documents describe a gruesome crime scene, discovered by a maintenance man asked to look into a foul smell coming from the apartment.
Davin was found in a sleeping bag, with a knife still stuck in his chest and a black trash bag over his head. Da’Neria was found in the bathtub.
Police said Wednesday that Hall, 28, confessed to killing the children. She is charged with two counts of first-degree murder and is being held without bail, with a bail review hearing scheduled for Thursday afternoon.
On social media, Hall often posted about her children. “My two little best friends. They perfect to me. A bond that can never be broken,” she wrote in April.
But there had been prior signs of trouble. In 2018, she set her mother’s home on fire, disabling smoke detectors and burning family photos, some of which had been assembled into what police described then as an “altar.” Police put out an alert for her and the children, who were located at a hospital. She was sentenced to a year in prison for first-degree arson, but maintained custody of the children.
According to charging documents in the murder, police said Hall was last seen with her children outside of the apartment building, in the 500 block of Coventry Road, on Aug. 19. Neighbors said they heard screaming inside the apartment on the night of Aug. 19 into Aug. 20.
Hall’s mother told police she spoke to Hall on Aug. 23, who reported that she was in the hospital and the children’s father was taking care of them.
The father told police that he had not seen the children. But he had seen Hall, walking in the area of North Avenue and Bloomingdale Road, “screaming and cursing at no one” and that she “appeared to be under the influence.”
Police tracked Hall down after determining she was in an Uber and possibly en route to the area of Philadelphia Road and Rossville Boulevard in Baltimore County. Members of the Regional Auto Theft Task Force located her and took her into custody.
