Man accused of killing 1-year-old girl at West Sacramento motel eligible for death penalty
Yolo County prosecutors have filed charges against a man accused of beating and torturing a 1-year-old girl who was found dead in a West Sacramento motel room earlier this week.
The little girl’s family says Amanda Marie Owens was found dead with severe bruising inside the room at Silvey’s Motel along West Capitol Avenue on Monday. They have said Amanda’s mother left her two children with the man she had been dating and returned to the motel to find her injured daughter.
Following a 24-hour “regionwide manhunt,” Derrick Dimone Woods, 43, of Sacramento, was arrested in connection with the girl’s death. Court records show Woods has been convicted in unrelated Sacramento County child abuse and domestic battery cases.
The little girl was found “deceased from traumatic injuries” midday Monday at the motel, according to the West Sacramento Police Department. Woods was seen running from the motel room and identified as the suspect in the homicide. Investigators obtained a homicide arrest warrant and apprehended Woods on Tuesday at a Sacramento home.
The Yolo County District Attorney’s Office charged Woods with murder in the death of the girl, who was identified as “A.O.” in a criminal complaint filed in court Thursday morning.
A special circumstances enhancement to the murder charge alleges that Woods committed “torture” in the girl’s death, according to the criminal complaint. The special circumstances enhancement makes the case eligible for the death penalty.
The District Attorney’s Office has not yet decided whether to seek the death penalty against Woods, said Chief Deputy District Attorney Jonathan Raven.
If prosecutors decide to seek the death penalty and Woods is convicted, a jury during a penalty phase of a trial would decide whether to send the defendant to prison for life without a chance for parole sentence him to death.
Woods also faces charges of assault on a child younger than 8 years old with force likely to produce great bodily injury resulting in death, according to the complaint. That charge indicates that the child was injured while in Woods’ care.
Prosecutors also charged Woods with abusing or endangering a child, alleging the defendant inflicted “unjustifiable physical pain and mental suffering” on the child while in his care. This charge includes an enhancement that alleges Woods inflicted great bodily injury on the child younger than 5 years old. This charge stems from the injuries inflicted on the surviving child in the incident, Raven said.
Woods appears in court
On Thursday afternoon, Woods made his first appearance in Yolo Superior Court for his arraignment. He has remained in custody at Monroe Detention Center in Woodland since his arrest Tuesday.
Woods, who remained at the jail, appeared in court via a Zoom online broadcast in compliance with COVID-19 safety precautions. The hearing was streamed on the courtroom’s YouTube channel.
Woods only spoke during the brief hearing to confirm his name and to tell Judge Tom Dyer he could not afford to hire his own attorney. The defendant appeared on camera wearing a mask to cover the lower portion of his face.
The judge appointed the Yolo County Public Defender’s Office to represent Woods. Deputy Public Defender Jose Gonzalez entered a not guilty plea on the three charges and denied all enhancements alleged against Woods.
Dyer ordered Woods to remain in jail without bail pending the prosecution of his case. The judge scheduled a preliminary hearing for Woods on April 2. At the end of that hearing, the court will determine whether there’s enough evidence for Woods to stand trial.
Deputy District Attorney Sara Abrate submitted criminal protective orders for Amanda’s mother and her brother. The judge ordered Woods not to try to contact the mother and her son for three years, unless the court modifies the protective orders. There was no discussion about the death penalty during the arraignment hearing.
Violence against Black women and children
Berry Accius, a Sacramento Black community advocate, has worked to help Amanda’s mother and her family since her daughter’s death. He said the mother has struggled with the loss of her daughter and the injuries to her 3-year-old son, who was left with Woods in the motel room with his baby sister.
“Just to hear the mother’s cries ... it’s like her worst nightmare has come true,” said Accius, who is the founder of the mentorship program Voice of the Youth.
The mother declined to speak about her daughter’s death. Accius said Amanda’s brother also was injured in the incident at the motel. He said Thursday the boy was listed in stable condition and expected to recover, but will have to deal with the severe “mental anguish” he experienced in that motel room.
A manager at the motel said Wednesday the mother had been staying at the motel with two small children, and Woods was not a registered guest there. Sgt. Eric Angle, a West Sacramento police spokesman, confirmed Woods was dating the mother, and he was not the biological father of the children.
Accius said Amanda’s death is just another cry for help from a neglected women and children victimized by violence. He said there are so many other similar cases of violence that aren’t discussed, especially within the Black community.
“Violence against Black women, violence against Black children is here. Stop hiding it,” Accius told The Sacramento Bee. “If this is not a wake-up call, I don’t know what is.”
Previous child abuse conviction
Woods has a long criminal history in Sacramento County, including the convictions for child abuse and domestic battery dating back nearly 25 years.
Sacramento Superior Court records show Woods with numerous criminal convictions dating back to the mid-1990s. Most of them are misdemeanor domestic violence charges, some of which were reduced from initial felony charges, court records show.
Woods pleaded no contest to a felony charge of corporal injury to a spouse or partner in 2005 and no contest to a misdemeanor charge of corporal injury to a child filed in 1996, according to court records. The 2005 felony conviction resulted in a five-year probation term.
Accius said the mother dated Woods for a few months, didn’t know him well and “had no idea” Woods had been previously convicted of child abuse and domestic battery. He said she is struggling with emotional pain.
“From what I know, the mother did the best she could in the situation,” Accius said. “She lost a 1-year-old. Don’t blame the victim.”
He said the child’s death should be a lesson to the community to step up and work together to help Black women and children from becoming victimized or left in a vulnerable position.
“What are we going to do as a community to make sure this doesn’t happen again,” Accius said. “What are we going to do to make this doesn’t happen to another Amanda?”
Manager at Silvey’s Motel
Nicky Patel, a manager at Silvey’s Motel, said the mother had been staying at the motel for about a week. She said the mother was nice, and her children seemed well fed and taken care of.
“It’s just so sad. It’s still difficult to talk about it today,” Patel said Wednesday as she and her husband cleaned one of the other rooms at the motel.
The manager said the mother always cleaned up after her children, who quietly sat on the bed when Patel and her husband would enter to clean the room and change the sheets and towels.
Children are not allowed to play outside on the walkway in front of the motel rooms or in the parking lot, for safety reasons. Patel said she never heard the children crying when they were around their mother, and she never had any problems with them.
Patel said she saw Woods at the motel the day before the child was found dead. She said Woods was wearing a mask, since everyone is required to wear a mask as a COVID-19 safety precaution, but she recognized his eyes when police showed her a photo of him.
The motel manager said Woods asked for bed sheets and towels for the room, where their mother was staying with her children. She assumed Woods was a relative visiting the mother and her children, but he certainly was not a registered a guest. She had never seen Woods at the motel before.
On Monday, Patel said the mother had gone into the street on West Capitol Avenue. She said the mother was screaming, “My baby, he killed my baby!”
The mother was screaming for help, Patel said. So, the manager tried to call 911 but Patel was in a state of shock after seeing the mother holding her injured baby. The manager said the baby appeared to have a bruise on the side of her face.
“I couldn’t even speak on the phone,” Patel said about that moment. “But someone else had already called police. The police then called me here at the motel.”
This story was originally published February 18, 2021 at 1:12 PM with the headline "Man accused of killing 1-year-old girl at West Sacramento motel eligible for death penalty."
