A10 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13 , 2020
BY ASHLEY CUSICK
AND KIM BELLWAREloreauville, la. — The disap-
pearance and mysterious death of
a 15-year-old Black boy in rural
Louisiana has left his family look-
ing for answers and airing frus-
tration at what they call local law
enforcement’s failure to act in the
hours after the boy vanished.
The body of Quawan “Bobby”
Charles was found Nov. 3 i n a
sugar cane field near this tiny
village about 25 miles north of his
home. The Iberia Parish Sheriff’s
Office has said it is investigating
the “suspicious circumstances” of
Quawan’s death but has released
few details
since the boy
went missing
two weeks ago.
Quawan’s
parents say the
sheriff’s of fice
told them that
their son had
drowned and
water was
found in his
lungs. An autopsy has been com-
pleted, the Iberia Parish Coroner
office’ said, but a report could
take up to 12 weeks. Lawyers and
advocates for Quawan’s family
said they have not seen prelimi-
nary autopsy results nor a police
report.
Quawan’s cousin Celina
Charles called the drowning ex-
planation “bogus.”
“His face says different,”
Charles said. In a p hoto shared by
the family the teen appears so
disfigured that his teeth were
visible outside of his mouth. The
family has ordered an independ-
ent autopsy.
Quawan’s parents reported his
disappearance to police on Oct.
30, according to family attorney
Ron Haley. The Baldwin Police
Department took a report, Haley
said, but gave no indication over
the next few days that they were
searching for the teen or actively
investigating his disappearance.
Instead, they suggested Quawan
might have gone to a football
game and asked if the boy had a
troubled past, he said.
Baldwin’s assistant police chief
had not responded to messages
left at his of fice, and the Iberia
Parish Sheriff’s Of fice referred
questions to a Tuesday news re-
lease stating its investigators
“have interviewed multiple indi-
viduals and collected physical ev-
idence which is being processed.”
Quawan’s family said they
learned through a third party that
a 17-year-old friend and his moth-
er, Gavin and Janet Irvin, had
picked up Quawan around 3 p.m.
the day he went missing, while
his father was at a s tore. Kenneth
Jacko, Quawan’s father, said nei-
ther he nor Quawan’s mother
knew the Irvins, who are White,
and had not given them permis-
sion to take Quawan.
Jacko said Iberia Parish of fi-
cers accompanied Quawan’s fam-
ily to the Irvins’ home on Nov. 3 —
four days after Quawan disap-
peared. Gavin confirmed the sto-
ry, Jacko said, explaining that the
boys wanted to spend time to-
gether but that Quawan later left,
alone.
“[Gavin] said Quawan got up
and said he was leaving. [Gavin]
asked about where Quawan was
going, and after that he disap-
peared,” Jacko said. Officers
searched the Irvins’ home but did
not find anything, Jacko said.
Later that day, police discov-
ered Quawan’s body in a nearby
field. The family has not heard
from the Irvins since, Haley said.
The Washington Post’s at-
tempts to reach the Irvins by
phone and at their home in a
Loreauville trailer park on
Wednesday were unsuccessful. A
relative of the trailer park’s owner
said the Irvins recently had been
evicted, but he didn’t say why.
A spokeswoman for the sher-
iff’s of fice said she could not
comment on whether investiga-
tors were communicating with
the Irvins. No suspects have been
named in the case, and it has not
been designated a homicide.
“I want the lady who came to
get my son without my permis-
sion, his dad’s permission, to be
held accountable,” said Quawan’s
mother, Roxanne Nelson, during
a vigil for her son last week. “She
took them to her house. He was
alive and well when he was here,and now he is dead.”
Relatives described Quawan,
nicknamed “Bobby,” as a quiet
boy who loved animals and the
outdoors. He was the youngest of
Nelson’s eight children, finally on
the cusp of outgrowing his baby-
faced looks.
At 5-foot-7, Quawan had been
trying to bulk up his slight 112-
pound frame with weightlifting
and peanut butter protein snacks.
Jacko teased his son about his
new habits, warning him, “once
you start, you’ll gain it in the
wrong spots.”
Quawan was starting to ma-
ture emotionally, too, his father
said.
“He was growing up and talk-
ing to me and stuff. Father-to-son
stuff,” Jacko said.
Earlier this year, Quawan
saved enough of his weekly allow-
ance to buy a computer. He also
had taken in a dog he named “My
Baby.” Quawan ’s devotion to the
dog was so strong that despite
having allergies, Jacko allowed it
to join the household whenQuawan moved in.
“That’s why when Quawan
came up missing, I couldn’t un-
derstand why he left the dog
behind,” Jacko said.
Gavin, the 17-year-old who
Quawan’s parents believe was
among the last to see their son
alive, gave Quawan the dog this
year.
Jacko was unsure how his son
knew Irvin but guessed they met
at Southside High School in
Youngsville; Quawan recently left
that school after moving to live
with his father and had started at
his new school the week he went
missing.
Multiple neighbors in the Ir-
vins’ mobile home community
said they saw the family packing a
U-Haul truck this week before
moving out Wednesday. Resi-
de nts Tambara Bonnet and her
fiance Kevin Archon said the Ir-
vins had moved in two trailers
down from them in recent
months.
Bonnet, who is Black, said she
is not surprised by what shecalled a “weak” investigation by
the Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Of fice.
“If it was a White kid, they
would have looked for him right
then and there,” she said.
Archon, who also is Black, said
he didn’t know Quawan’s family
but helped them look through the
sugar cane field where Quawan’s
body had been discovered. He
finds it implausible that Quawan
could have drowned in the ankle-
high water they found there.
Archon said he knows some
sheriff’s of ficers whom he would
describe as “cool people.” But he
thinks race has been a factor in
the police response to Quawan’s
disappearance.
“If it was a White person — if it
was one of their kids — people
would have probably been in jail
by now ,” Archon said.
Relatives of Quawan have criti-
cized authorities for not alerting
local news or sending out an
Amber Alert for Quawan when
they reported him missing. They
said the Baldwin police told them
they entered the disappearanceinto an Amber Alert database but
that state police must activate it.
Louisiana State Police did not
respond to questions from The
Post.
“Once this became public, al-
most every local news station
said, ‘We had no idea a child was
even missing,’ ” H aley told The
Post on Wednesday.
Local activists have joined
Quawan’s family in questioning
whether racial bias influenced
the initial response to Quawan’s
disappearance, noting what Ha-
ley described as a “fractured”
relationship between the sheriff’s
office and local residents due to
past allegations of racism and
abuse.
“Systemic racism and bias is
not just pulling someone over on
the highway, or the police shoot-
ing them while unarmed,” Haley
said. “It goes deeper; it’s a l ack of
empath y.”
The lack of details around
Quawan’s death also has started
to gnaw at some Loreauville resi-
dents and activists who have
joined the family in calling for
more answers.
“ Police and people in this state
that have perversely racially bi-
ased tendencies, when they see
our children, they don’t see their
children,” said Jamal Taylor, who
leads the local advocacy group
Stand Black.
Celina Charles, the cousin who
is serving as a family spokeswom-
an, said she watched last week as
Nelson ran from a viewing room
screaming in anguish at the sight
of her son’s mutilated face.
“Is it Emmett Till bad?” she
said she asked Nelson, referring
to the 14-year-old Black boy who
was lynched in Mississippi in
1955.
After seeing Quawan’s body
herself, Celina Charles urged Nel-
son to do the same thing Till’s
mother had done 65 years earlier,
sharing a photo of Till’s mangled
body with news media in an act
that helped sparked the civil
rights movement.
Nelson pulled out her phone,
snapped a photo of her son and
then shared it with the world.
“The people needed to see
what he was looking like,” Charles
said.
[email protected]Julie Tate contributed to this report.Louisiana teen’s suspicious death prompts calls for more police transparency
ASHLEY CUSICK FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
Kenneth Jacko, the father of Qu awan “Bobby” Charles, holds photo of him and his son as an infant.
Jacko questions why Quawan would have left his beloved dog behind if he had run off.Family, activists wonder
if racial bias slowedresponse to disappearance
Quawan
Charles
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