A Miami-Dade woman has been imprisoned after one of her sons employed an unsecured firearm to shoot and fatally wound his 4-year-old sister last month. The mother’s boyfriend, who is accused of leaving the firearm unattended, was detained right after the incident.
Krystal Banegas, 24, faces charges of neglect leading to severe bodily harm, and three counts of negligence toward each of her surviving sons who witnessed the incident. Her boyfriend, Quavanta Demettris Ennels, 25, has been charged with severe negligence leading to a child’s death, three counts of negligence, and ownership of a weapon as a convicted criminal.
As of Wednesday afternoon, they are both detained at Miami-Dade County’s Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center. Information regarding Banegas’ lawyer was not available early Wednesday afternoon. The public defender’s office, representing Ennels, did not promptly respond to the Miami Herald’s request for comment.
On November 5 at 3:41 p.m., law enforcement hurried to the 8180 block of Northwest 21st Avenue after receiving a report of a child shot. There they found the 4-year-old girl, later identified as Josalyn Taylor-Rolle, with a gunshot wound to the head, as per Miami-Dade police.
Josalyn was taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Ryder Trauma Center, where she was pronounced brain-dead shortly after arrival. Subsequently, she was transferred for further examination to Holtz Children’s Hospital’s Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, where she was taken off life support on November 13.
An autopsy revealed that Josalyn died from a gunshot wound to the head, and the death was classified as a homicide.
According to court documents, Josalyn was in a bedroom with her three brothers — ages 2, 3 and 6 — when one of them accessed Ennels’ firearm. The bedroom’s door was closed while Banegas, Ennels and “other adults” were in the living room.
The child then removed the firearm from the bag and shot his sister in the head. Upon hearing the gunshot, Ennels and Banegas rushed into the bedroom and found Josalyn bleeding.
Ennels was apprehended soon after, as state law prohibits convicted felons like him from possessing firearms. Department of Corrections records from 2016 show that he was sentenced to four years for armed robbery in Duval County. He was released in 2018.
Ennels described the boy responsible for shooting Josalyn as a mischievous child, “always engaging in prohibited activities,” according to police.
On November 21, Banegas claimed she was unaware of the firearm in the bedroom.
“On more than one occasion she appeared more concerned about whether she would be arrested than providing investigators clear information,” a detective wrote in Banegas’ arrest warrant affidavit.
Subsequent to a judge approving an arrest warrant for Banegas, she was arrested on Tuesday night.
Children interviewed
Two of Banega’s three sons were interviewed, and her youngest, 2, was not due to his age, court records indicate.
While none of them admitted to shooting their sister, both stated that Ennels had left the firearm on a dresser in the bedroom, contradicting his prior statement where he informed detectives that he had placed it in a book bag, as per the police.
Investigators discovered a gun holster on the floor and near the dresser, a bullet “within the south wall of the bedroom,” an empty black Taurus 9mm semiautomatic firearm without a magazine on the kitchen floor, and an extended magazine loaded with 10 bullets inside a garbage bin.
Florida’s Department of Children and Families did not immediately confirm if the surviving children were under state custody.
Ennels and Banegas “failed” to provide them with care, supervision and services necessary to maintain the physical and mental health” of the victims, the detective wrote.
“The evidence shows that the Subject (Banegas) left the victims in a room, unattended, with a loaded firearm that was subsequently retrieved by one of the victims and used to kill the deceased victim,” the detective wrote.