From the archive: Girl's body in trunk is identified; stepfather, mother charged

This article was published in the Inquirer on Oct. 21, 1987.

A little girl whose battered body was discovered in February 1982 inside an old steamer trunk in the shadow of the Platt Memorial Bridge has been identified and the child's mother and stepfather have been charged with causing her death, investigators said yesterday.

The case of Aliyah Davis, who was 5 1/2 years old when she died, in July 1981,  "shows the continuing saga of dead children because of mismanagement on the part of DHS," the city's Department of Human Services, said District Attorney Ronald D. Castille.

The District Attorney's Office said that Aliyah's mother, Maria Davis Fox, and stepfather, Charles Fox, both in their early 30s, were still receiving Aid to Dependent Children payments for Aliyah last summer.

The District Attorney's Office and other agencies, including the state Department of Human Services, have been critical of the DHS, whose division of child-protective services is responsible for overseeing the welfare of children in households receiving public assistance.  DHS caseworkers failed to observe evidence of abuse in households in which three children have died this year, according to authorities.

Officials said that the Foxes had been collecting about $1,000 a month in welfare benefits, including ADC.  The DHS conducted a review of the Fox household in May and approved a continuation of all benefits, the District Attorney's Office said.

Sources close to the investigation said yesterday that the DHS had been aware that Maria Davis Fox was sentenced to eight years' probation for the death of another of her children in 1973.

The DHS also had access to hospital emergency-room information that would document injuries suffered by Maria Davis Fox's two other children, Amira Davis, 14, and Malcolm Davis, 16, sources said.

During a grand jury investigation in July, Dana Newman of the DHS testified that since July 1981, "Maria Davis Fox has collected in excess of $3,500 in public assistance on behalf of Aliyah Davis. "

DHS records show that in May, Maria Davis Fox attended a welfare redetermination meeting "and again stated that she was entitled to collect payments on behalf of Aliyah. "

Amira and Malcolm Davis, in testimony before the same grand jury, stated that they suffered frequent beatings and other physical abuse at the hands of their mother and stepfather.

Amira Davis testified that she saw Charles Fox beat Aliyah to death with a stick in July 1981 while the family was living in a house on Baltimore Avenue in West Philadelphia, according to the grand jury presentment.  Maria Davis Fox looked on and did not attempt to stop him, the presentment said.

Charles Fox, according to Amira Davis' testimony, left Aliyah's body on a bed for two or three days, then placed it in a steamer trunk and, with the help of a friend identified as Craig Butler, took the trunk to a spot near the Platt Memorial Bridge in Southwest Philadelphia.

The body was discovered seven months later.

The grand-jury presentment charged Fox with murder and Maria Davis Fox with involuntary manslaughter in Aliyah's death.  It also charged both of them with aggravated assault, conspiracy to commit aggravated assault, abuse of a corpse, welfare fraud and endangering the welfare of a child.  Butler, who testified before the grand jury, was granted immunity.

The Foxes were living in the 5100 block of Springfield Avenue in West Philadelphia when the grand jury began its investigation last summer.  Police said that officers last month began staking out the West Philadelphia welfare office where the couple had been picking up their monthly public-assistance check, but that the Foxes never came to claim it.

The District Attorney's Office said the couple was being sought.

The nude, badly decomposed body of Aliyah Davis was discovered on Feb. 12, 1982, inside a steamer trunk by two Pennsylvania Department of Transportation employees performing repairs on the western side of the Platt bridge.

The body was wrapped in a blue-and-white sheet and plastic trash bags.  An autopsy found evidence of rib fractures, and Medical Examiner Robert Catherman concluded that death had been caused by multiple injuries to the head and body.

Police at the time were unable to identify the body.  After the autopsy, the skull of the child was turned over to artist Frank Bender, who performed a facial reconstruction that was photographed and distributed on fliers, police said.

Despite an intensive investigation, the body remained unidentified until last summer.

In June, Ronald Davis, the father of Aliyah, Amira and Malcolm, renewed efforts to gain custody of his children from Maria Davis Fox, his former wife.

Davis, who lives in the 400 block of East Church Lane in Germantown, said during an interview yesterday that he had been "on a roller-coaster ride for 10 years" with the courts over custody of the children.

"Everytime that I took her into court, she always got a clean bill of health and they believed her: that the kids were in school," Davis said.  ''And they would tell me to get lost.  My kids have not been in school. "

Carolyn Short, assistant district attorney who presented the case to the grand jury, said yesterday that Davis had been denied visitation rights for a period of years.  In June, when he visited with his two teenage children, Amira Davis "broke down and told him what had happened to Alyiah.  He immediately took the two kids down to homicide," Short said.

Police said that Amira and Malcolm Davis, as well as Butler, identified artist Bender's re-creation as Aliyah's face.  In addition, according to police, Aliyah had pierced ears, as did the body in the trunk, and dental x- rays taken of Aliyah some years ago matched the dental configuration of the girl in the trunk.

Police said yesterday that in September 1973, while Ronald and Maria Davis were married and living with their children in the 4400 block of North Cleveland Street in North Philadelphia, a rescue unit was dispatched to their home to investigate a medical emergency.

Paramedics found the couple's 17-month-old son, Saeed, in a second-floor bedroom.  The boy showed no signs of life and was pronounced dead minutes later at Temple University Hospital, police said.  The Medical Examiner's Office listed the cause of death as injuries to the head and body.

Police interviewed the parents and charged Maria Davis with murder and involuntary manslaughter.  Ronald Davis was not charged.

The case went to court on June 10, 1974, and Maria Davis, who admitted to striking the boy, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter and was sentenced to eight years' probation, according to court records.

Children under DHS supervision have been found dead in three cases this year.  The body of Sylvia Smith, 3, was found May 21 kneeling beside her bed in a West Philadelphia housing project; the body of Malik Richard Barnhill, 2, was discovered June 8 inside a dresser drawer in the basement of a vacant North Philadelphia rowhouse, and Carmen Gonzalez, 18 months, was dead when brought to Episcopal Hospital by her mother on July 26.

Authorities have said that all three deaths were the result of abuse or neglect.