A Philadelphia jury has found Dominique Bailey, 33, and her boyfriend, Kevin Spencer, 33, guilty of third-degree murder in the December 2023 death of Bailey's 4-year-old son, Damari Carter. The pair were also convicted of conspiracy, abuse of a corpse and false reporting of a crime, while jurors acquitted both defendants of first-degree murder. They are scheduled to be sentenced in December 2026.
The verdict, reported by NBC10 Philadelphia, caps nearly three years of investigation into a case that began when police received a missing-person report on Dec. 30, 2023, after a television news reporter inquired about the boy — not after any report from his mother, according to Law & Crime. Family members reportedly had not seen Damari since his birthday on Nov. 25, 2023. Bailey initially told relatives her son had been struck and killed by a car, but investigators found no evidence supporting that claim.
Under Pennsylvania law, third-degree murder is classified as a first-degree felony involving a killing committed with malice but without specific intent to kill, carrying a maximum statutory sentence of up to 40 years in prison, according to the Pennsylvania General Assembly. That distinction is central to the case: jurors rejected the more serious first-degree murder charge, which would have required proof of premeditated intent to kill.
How Investigators Unraveled the Cover Story
Bailey was brought into police custody for questioning on Jan. 4, 2024, and the following day she told investigators she was involved in her son's death, per the seed reporting. Philadelphia police then executed a search warrant at a home on the 3800 block of Reno Street, where they found and took Spencer into custody.
Surveillance footage examined by investigators showed Spencer dragging a trash bag out of the Reno Street residence on Dec. 8, 2023, and carrying a black Puma duffel bag over his shoulder the following day, according to court testimony and police records cited by The Mirror US. That bag was ultimately recovered in an alleyway less than half a mile from the home. On March 18, 2024, city sanitation workers cleaning the 600 block of North 38th Street in Mantua discovered a child's decomposed remains inside the duffel bag, but severe decomposition initially prevented investigators from determining the victim's age or gender. Philadelphia police did not authoritatively identify the remains as Damari Carter until April 3, 2024, following DNA testing, CBS News reported.
A Warning Call That Went Nowhere
Days before Damari's death, a downstairs neighbor called Philadelphia's Department of Human Services to report hearing whip sounds, beatings and toddler screams coming from the home, but agency staff told her to call police instead and did not intervene, according to preliminary hearing testimony reported by The Philadelphia Inquirer. The neighbor reportedly feared retaliation and did not call 911 directly, a detail that later prompted prosecutors to subpoena city welfare records. An official with Philadelphia's Office of Children and Families later clarified that Damari was neither receiving child welfare services nor in city custody at the time of his death, though state confidentiality laws restricted the agency from disclosing further details about the hotline call, the paper's reporting noted.
The Inquirer's reporting also surfaced that Bailey had previously lost custody of another son after the boy suffered severe beatings she attributed to a babysitter, according to the boy's grandfather, Frank Bailey. That child was subsequently adopted by an aunt in Texas. Separately, Damari's biological father, Darryle Carter Jr., a military veteran living in Texas, said Bailey abruptly cut off communication and moved with their son to Philadelphia in early 2023, and that he independently called local coroners after hearing the car crash story, according to Metro Philadelphia. No medical examiner's office in the region had any record of the child.
Contrasting Reactions in the Courtroom
During an August 2024 preliminary hearing, prosecutors noted that Spencer appeared completely detached throughout police interviews, while Bailey wept continuously and asked to leave the courtroom during video playback of the abuse; the judge denied her request, the Inquirer reported at the time. During closing arguments this October, Bailey's defense attorney told the jury she suffered from what he called “love blindness,” which led her to make poor decisions that resulted in her son's death, according to KYW Newsradio. The defense sought to shift primary physical blame for the beatings onto Spencer.
The trial itself saw at least one disruption: a juror was dismissed for discussing the case outside the courtroom, according to KYW Newsradio. With both defendants now convicted on all but the first-degree murder count, the case moves toward sentencing in December, where both face the possibility of decades behind bars under Pennsylvania's third-degree murder statute.
