On Aug. 14, 2009, 4-year-old Kelis Rucker was found lifeless in a closet in Bradenton. Her body temperature indicated she’d been dead for a while. Her jaw was stiff, and hospital workers found marks on her neck that suggested she’d been strangled. Her death remained unsolved.
Ten years later, the mystery became a murder.
On Tuesday, the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office charged Kelis’ mother, Dominique Brewer — who long had been a suspect in the girl’s death — with killing the youngster.
“The mother,” a statement from the sheriff’s office said, “was the only one in the house with the child, and gave several inconsistent statements during initial interviews. She also admitted to drug use prior to the incident.”
“The mother also gave no viable explanation as to injuries that the child received,” the statement said.
In 2009, when Manatee sheriff’s deputies asked Brewer to explain exactly how
4-year-old Kelis had died, the apparent victim of strangulation, she offered a buffet of explanations: The girl, she said, had been pretending to be a ballerina, and was playing with a pink and purple scarf “that she loved to wear,” a child welfare report said.
Brewer said the scarf was found on the floor with nothing around her daughter’s neck. But she also said Kelis was found with the scarf tied around her neck. And that the scarf was lying next to Kelis. Or, that Kelis was found hanging in the closet, with the scarf still tethered to her head.
Deputies were skeptical. The scarf, which Brewer suggested her daughter had used to hang herself, later was found hidden under a comforter on Kelis’ bed — not near the youngster, “as one would expect when discovering an unresponsive child,” a child welfare report said. Though Kelis had wet herself when she died, police found urine only on her bed, not the closet where she was found.
And Brewer’s relatives were doubtful, as well. When deputies questioned them, an aunt and uncle “were suspicious of Kelis’ death, stating that, although Ms. Brewer took good care of (her), a lot of things ... don’t add up,” the report said.
Even the Manatee County medical examiner was unconvinced by Brewer’s account of her daughter’s death. The medical examiner told investigators the autopsy findings suggested “it was likely the mother played a more active role in the child’s death.”
Nevertheless, Kelis Rucker’s death remained unsolved for nearly a decade. Then, on Tuesday, the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office booked Brewer into jail on a charge of murder.
The autopsy of Kelis Rucker concluded she had died of asphyxia and neck compression, and also had sustained “blunt impact” to her head. Associate Medical Examiner Suzanne R. Utley left undetermined whether Kelis died as a result of homicide, suicide or an accident, records show.
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