Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, October 12, 1995 TAG: 9510130002
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BETH MACY
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Simone Ann Ayton never meant to harm her infant son, Darius Akeem.
Even now, two weeks after being sentenced for drowning him last November, she says through a Roanoke City Jail telephone: ``I never once hit my son, never in my life.''
Court records reveal a young woman who was eager to be a good mother, who never missed one of her 25 prenatal appointments, who kept a gushing journal throughout her pregnancy about giving her child the life - and love - she never had.
Sept. 15, 1993: ``I, Simone Ayton, are looking forward to beening [sic] a mom. I will take the responsibility of taking care of my baby and give it the love and support my son or daughter need because I want my son or daughter to know that mommy loves them. Even if my baby father is not around to support us.
``I just know I'm going to be a good mother and when my child grows older I want him or her to be very proud of mommy.''
Even when her son was put in foster care, after being hospitalized for dehydration and malnutrition, Simone had a 17-point list of things she hoped to accomplish as a mother.
Sept. 23, 1994: ``These are what I'm planning for my son: send him to preschool. . . and let him become what he want to become. . . and let him pick what college is want to go. . . and let him pick what meal he want to eat, and teach him right from wrong. . . and teach him about the bad diseases like cancer and aids and all the other kind, and teach him how to cope with stress. . . and teach him about the bible. . . and teach him good things like a mom should.''
There was the hand-scrawled list of items she had put on layaway at Hill's for Darius' first Christmas: ``toys, pants, outfit, high chair, potty.'' There was the list of baby names she'd made while pregnant before settling on the name Darius - after seeing it on the credits of the TV show ``Family Matters.''
There were the awards she'd won at a Jaycees camp the summer of '93 for ``Most enthusiastic singer'' and ``Best vocalist - karaoke air band.'' And there was the 1992 certificate of completion from a YMCA parenting class.
These were the good things in Simone Ayton's life.
Court records contain mostly the bad: a two-inch stack of psychiatric reports, beginning almost from the time she moved to Roanoke from Jamaica at age 15. A school psychiatrist reported she couldn't do simple subtraction or make change. She read at a third-grade level and had an IQ of 66. One teacher noted she was ``gentle and sweet.''
Mildly retarded and physically handicapped from childhood meningitis, Simone had a history of epileptic seizures, depression and temper outbursts. She was committed to Southwest Virginia Mental Health Institute at least three times - once for allegedly trying to kill her 10-year-old brother with a machete, twice for trying to kill herself.
There were also multiple stays at the Transitional Living Center, the Monticello Home for Adults, Roanoke Memorial Hospital Rehabilitation Center, Lewis-Gale Psychiatric Center and Catawba Hospital.
In 1992, after Simone attempted suicide with an overdose of her medicines, a hospital social worker noted: ``The patient reports her mother told her during their most recent argument that she is a `devil child' and she wished the patient had never been born. This has been confirmed'' by her case manager.
Later that year, a mental-health services report said: ``Simone is treated like a leper at home.''
In 1993, when Simone was eight weeks pregnant, she tried suicide again. ``She reports being depressed because her boyfriend has nothing to do with her pregnancy and he would not care for the child,'' a nurse wrote. When her father was asked to come to a family meeting for Simone at the hospital, he refused, saying he was ``finished with Simone.''
Hospitalized for seizures during the seventh month of her pregnancy, Simone had no one to pick her up when she was released. ``I've called everyone I can think of,'' a nurse quoted Simone as saying.
Alone, ostracized and outcast, she turned to her baby for love. But the same conditions that led to her leper status prevented her from coping with the never-ending reality of raising a child.
She couldn't be a real mother. She didn't know how, couldn't know how.
If Simone's family failed her, then so did the system, which took the child from her then returned him with full knowledge of Simone's suicidal and homicidal history. And so does society, when it continues to look the other way at the Simone Aytons of the world.
Simone says she's ready to pay for pushing her 7-month-old son under the bath water and holding him there until he could no longer cry. Asked what she thinks of Judge Clifford Weckstein, who sentenced her to 18 years in prison, she said, ``He's kinda all right to me.''
She doesn't mind the Roanoke City Jail, either, where she awaits transfer to a penitentiary and where she says she's lucky to have a cellmate who talks to her and shares her shampoo.
``She reads the Bible to me and keeps me on my toes,'' Simone says. ``She's good company. She helps me try to forget.
``Really, I just give it to God. I just thank the Lord that no more harm will come to my son because he's safe now. Nobody at all will hurt him now, not even his mother.''
Beth Macy's column runs on Tuesdays and Thursdays. She can be reached at 981-3435.
by CNB