Florida Dad Feeds His Son to a Gator

Florida Dad Feeds His Son to a Gator

Missing persons cases involving small children are always difficult for everyone involved. Often times it is those closest to the child that are responsible for their disappearance, and time is of the essence. According to FBI statistics, when a child goes missing there is an 89% chance that they will be dead within 24 hours. Not only was this true for the victim in today’s story, but what he was finally recovered from is absolutely sickening.

Passion Monique Jeffrey was a vibrant young woman born on September 26, 2002. Her mother, Lita Denson, as well as her other immediate and extended family, were closely involved in her life. She was always seen with a smile on her face, whether it was at work at the local CVS or visiting friends. Her family described her as full of energy and how her eyes were a light every Christmas. She was short, standing barely at 5 feet, and was a bit of a makeup aficionado, always wanting to be presented well in public. A St. Petersburg, Florida native, she attended Bonito Middle School before graduating from Northeast High with honors, a feat made even more difficult by the recent birth of her son, Taylon Mosley.

Taylon was born on March 12th, 2021, to Passion and father Thomas Mosley. He was a cute child who took after his father right from birth. He had brown hair, inquisitive large brown eyes, and he was playful and friendly with everyone. He loved the Toy Story movies and action figures. His mother would often call to video chat with him on her breaks at work, leading him to borrow family members’ phones to try to call her. He was truly a bundle of joy in the center of his mother’s world.

Thomas Mosley was Taylon’s father, but by at least some accounts, not heavily involved in the family’s life. Passion’s mother once referred to her as a single mom and was proud of how her daughter was thriving. Now, Thomas was unemployed and had a minor criminal record, having once pled no contest to a charge of leaving the scene of a crash. David Mosley, his father, believed him to likely have some mental health issues that caused him to do things to harm himself as a teenager, but he was undiagnosed. Passion’s sister, Jamiah Faulk, told the police that Passion had described Thomas as crazy before, saying he wanted things his own way.

It was on Thomas’s 21st birthday, March 29th of 2023, that a horrible incident unfolded. On the morning of the 29th, Jamiah received a video call from Passion and Taylon. They were at the doctor’s office due to Taylon having been sick for a few days. They talked about Passion’s plans for the day, with Passion telling her sister that they were going to go to the store to find a birthday cake and then to a different store to look for a gift. Passion seemed off to her sister, but when she was asked about it, Passion said that with Taylon being sick and not being able to sleep, she was a bit irritated. He had also thrown a tantrum at the store.

The afternoon birthday party went by all accounts fairly well, with the exception of Taylon still not feeling well and spending most of the party sleeping in Passion’s room. It was a sunny, warm day in March. The party ended early, with some family members leaving around 5:00 p.m. as Passion’s younger brother had to get to track practice by 6:00. Passion’s family had already given Thomas his birthday present, which was a paint set. However, shortly after leaving, Passion texted her mother that Thomas didn’t want the paint set and that the family could use it. Her mother, Lita, recalled that Thomas was wearing a hoodie, jogging pants, and Gucci brand slides. Her daughter was wearing a Hot Wheels T-shirt with Taylon’s name on it.

The next day, Jamiah expected to be watching Taylon so that Passion could go work her regular shift. Jamiah woke up late that morning, realizing that Passion hadn’t brought Taylon. She tried to call her but didn’t get an answer. She called her mother, Lita, who also had not spoken to Passion that morning. Concerned, but not overly so, the two ladies went about their planned day. They asked Lita’s aunt if she could stop at Passion’s apartment to check on her. Their first stop of the day was at a local laundromat. While there, they received a call from the aunt that Passion was not answering the door, and that while she had checked with the apartment’s front office to see if they could go inside, they weren’t allowed in. However, Passion’s car was in the parking lot.

Next, they called her work, who reported that they hadn’t seen or heard from her either. Learning that, they decided to go to Thomas’s house. Thomas lived with his parents, Renee and David Mosley, in St. Petersburg, along with a brother named Isaac. They thought maybe Passion and Taylon had gone there after the party, but when Lita and Jamiah arrived there, Thomas’s brother was sitting out front. When asked, he replied that he thought she was at work. Isaac then informed Lita that when Thomas came back home after the party the night before, his arm was cut up badly enough to immediately take him to the hospital.

Uncertain of what was going on, but still not overly concerned, Lita returned to the laundromat and called the apartment complex, asking the front office if they could send someone to do a welfare check. The front office sent their maintenance man named Armando Diez. He knocked first, then let himself into the apartment with a master key. He saw the bathroom door standing open with a woman laying on the ground. He later told investigators that he thought she had a gunshot wound to her head. Shocked and overwhelmed at what he had seen, Armando quickly looked for the child that Lita had told him about, but he was unable to find little Taylon. He subsequently left the apartment and called 911.

“I’ve been doing this job for 30 years now, and I say that in the 30 years I’ve been doing this, I found maybe 35, 40 people because I worked with a lot of old people, and they’ve all been natural. This is the first one since I’ve been here in Florida that I found. I’ve never seen a crime scene…”

Officer: “What did you see when you went up there?”

Armando: “Well, there’s blood and bloody footprints all over the apartment…”

Officer: “I saw that when I went towards the bedroom, because my concern was the kid and her safety. I saw the bathroom door was closed, so I pushed the bathroom door open. She’s laying on the floor face down with her shorts down past her buttocks, her blouse is up to her neck, and she has a hole about the size of a silver dollar on the left side of her skull, between the ear and the skull right about here.”

Officer: “And you didn’t see any signs of the child?”

Armando: “No, I tried as I was backing out. I tried to look around the apartment, I walked into the room, looked around the side of the bed, and I backed out of the apartment. As I was walking out, I tried to look behind the sofa, but I didn’t want to contaminate too much in there, so I walked right out the door. But I didn’t see anything, I didn’t hear any noise coming from the baby.”

First responders arrived at the scene and pronounced 20-year-old Passion Jeffrey dead at 2:44 p.m. Soon, an Amber Alert was issued for 2-year-old Taylon, who was described as being 2 feet tall, 30 lbs, having brown hair and brown eyes. He was last seen at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, March 29th. Passion had not been found until approximately 2:30 p.m. on Thursday the 30th. This meant that any abductor had a long time to flee the area before police became involved. While police received several tips, none of them were found to be relevant.

During this time, police began to question neighbors, friends, and family members. While most of the neighbors didn’t recall seeing the family, one neighbor reported that she heard roughhousing from Passion’s apartment. She also reported hearing Taylon cry and Passion yelling “stop it.” This was sometime around 8:11 p.m. As far as anyone can tell, this is the last time anyone heard Passion or Taylon.

The police continued to search Passion’s apartment for any evidence about who the assailant was and where Taylon might have been taken. The only piece of useful evidence found at the scene was a bleach bottle that was located under a bed. It was covered in blood and had a partial fingerprint on it. They also found blood stains on multiple items in the house: a black shirt, two pillows, a set of sheets, and finally, a red-handled kitchen knife.

Passion’s body had injuries to both of her hands, the left side of her head, the front side of her left leg, and her right upper arm. Using alternate light source scanning, they found blood on the palm of her left hand and face. She was wearing the same clothing that her family had seen her in the night before: a Hot Wheels printed t-shirt, shorts, and a necklace. Her shirt had been pulled up to her neck, and her shorts and underwear were pulled down below her buttocks. Autopsy reports would later reveal that she had been stabbed over 100 times, many of them in her back.

Sergeant Martinez: “What’s your name, Miss Jackson?”

Lita Denson: “Lita Denson.”

Sergeant Martinez: “Like I said, I’m Sergeant Martinez. There’s a lot going on right now, but we’re going to have to get some information from you. You want to sit here?”

Lita Denson: “It just don’t look right. It doesn’t look right…”

Sergeant Martinez: “We’re still gathering information, and we’re still trying to figure out everything that’s going on, so I don’t want to give you information that isn’t correct. Y’all been in contact?”

Lita Denson: “I last heard from her yesterday around 5:00. I was on the phone with her between 1:00 and 1:30. I was out here at their house by 4:30 and everything was normal, the only thing was the baby was sleeping in the room with the door closed up a little bit.”

Sergeant Martinez: “So you last saw her at 4:30 yesterday and everything was fine?”

Lita Denson: “Yes, up till 5:00. She wasn’t concerned about anything, nothing was upsetting her. She was just upset about the baby daddy’s birthday.”

Sergeant Martinez: “Does the baby daddy live with her?”

Lita Denson: “No, he would just stay the night a couple times since March 12th, since Taylon just turned two years old.”

Sergeant Martinez: “What’s his name?”

Lita Denson: “Thomas Mosley. He’s black with dreads… Yesterday was his birthday, the 29th.”

The police began to check places where Taylon could possibly be. One of the first places was Desiree’s Private Daycare Services, a local home-run daycare where Thomas’s mother said Taylon had started going. Desiree, the caretaker, stated that Taylon hadn’t been there in a week due to being sick. Next, they went to Thomas’s family home to search for Taylon. With the approval of Thomas’s mother, officers searched the house along with the backyard and a shed for the baby. No sign of the child’s presence was found. Police also checked with Donna Johnson, another person who watched Taylon sometimes, but she told officers he hadn’t been there since the previous year.

Returning to the Mosley residence, detectives Talbet and Bilb spoke to the family to try to get any more information from them that they could. They attempted to speak to Renee, but she didn’t want to speak to them without her husband and another son present. When told that Passion had been murdered, Renee asked the officers if she needed an attorney, which they thought was odd. The officer further noted that the family appeared to be showing no emotion whatsoever.

David Mosley told the officers that Thomas had been staying with Passion for the last three weeks. On the night of the 29th, Thomas had come home and his father, David, had to let him into the house. Both parents stated that Thomas had multiple cuts on his arms. Thomas told his father that it was from a fight with a guy from Tampa, which David did not believe. David thought the wounds were possibly caused by Thomas himself due to his son having previous mental health issues as a teenager. While his mother was trying to help him with his cuts, his father went to move Thomas’s car into the yard. He had to place a bag over the seat of the vehicle because there was so much blood in the car from the injuries. Isaac, another sibling of Thomas, drove him to the hospital.

During this interview, Renee Mosley gave the officer a video from her doorbell camera that showed Thomas coming home at 9:03 p.m. on the night of the 29th. When officers went to look at Thomas’s car, they saw blood on the exterior of the passenger side and more blood inside the car. Using the vehicle exception to the standard warrant process, they got David Mosley to unlock the vehicle and looked inside to see if Taylon was possibly in the car somewhere. While Taylon was not in the car, they did find a large screen TV in the back seat. Detective Bilb called an officer at Passion’s apartment to ask about the TV and found that there was no television in the living room.

The officers then found a baby blanket covered in blood in the front passenger seat. As such, the vehicle was towed to the police department to be forensically processed. After a warrant was secured, officers searched the car and found an older-style flip phone. With news that Thomas had been taken to the hospital, officers went there to get any information he might have about Taylon. They were told that Thomas had been taken upstairs to the operating room for surgery on his hands and arms. Thomas was intubated and sedated at this point, so an officer was placed in his room to ask questions as soon as he awoke. Officers also checked with the emergency room for anything Thomas might have brought with him, but were unable to find his clothing, which was common to be cut off and disposed of.

On the morning of the 31st, police began asking family members to come to the station for interviews. One of the first was Isaac Mosley, who had taken Thomas to the hospital the night before. He spoke glowingly of his nephew and how much his whole family loved him. He spoke of Thomas being antisocial and not responding well to criticism. When asked directly if he knew where Taylon was, Isaac said, “To be honest, since all of this stuff has come out, the only person that would know that would be Thomas.” He also said his gut was telling him Thomas knew where Taylon was.

Isaac then recounted what happened the night of the 29th, noting that Thomas came in bleeding through a shirt wrapped around his arm. Isaac wrapped Thomas’s arm and hand in a towel and drove him to St. Anthony’s Hospital. Later, Thomas came out of surgery. When police spoke to him and told him they were just trying to find Taylon, Thomas responded by saying, “You need to be out there looking for my son, cracker, instead of in here bothering me.” He professed no knowledge of where Taylon was and became belligerent, threatening, and cussing at the officers. Meanwhile, officers reviewing hospital security footage observed Thomas and his brother arriving, and later saw David Mosley leaving the hospital carrying a St. Anthony’s property bag.

In the early hours of March 31st, police received phone call records and location data for Passion’s phone. The last ping showing for her phone was at Dell Holmes Park in St. Petersburg at around 8:57 p.m. on the night of March 29th. There were no further hits past this point. At 6:00 p.m. on the 31st, searches for Taylon began at Dell Holmes Park, utilizing drones, dogs, and foot searchers.

During the search, a young man named Liddell Golden came up to an officer and changed the course of the investigation, stating, “I don’t know if I’m seeing things, but I think there is a baby in an alligator’s mouth.” Liddell took the officer to a small canal connecting Lake Maggiore to another smaller lake. There, Officer Lance Cha saw an alligator that had an object in its mouth. As he got closer, he could clearly see the body of a small child. Officer Cha broadcasted this over the radio, and officers and agents swarmed the location. A single shot was fired to kill the alligator, which caused it to drop the child. Officer Dustin Webster positively identified the dead toddler as Taylon Mosley. The child had several minor wounds from the alligator’s teeth, and his left arm had been torn completely from his body. The autopsy report later showed that Taylon had been drowned.

That night, police executed a search warrant for the Mosley household, recovering security camera footage, multiple cell phones, and a set of Gucci slides with possible blood on them. Thomas Mosley was arrested on March 31st at 10:00 p.m. on two counts of first-degree murder for Passion Jeffrey and his son, Taylon Mosley. He was appointed a public defender and held with no bond.

The trial was delayed due to mental health issues exhibited by Mr. Mosley, and he was found incompetent to stand trial on August 1st, 2024. Questions remained among experts about whether he was suffering from major depression or malingering (faking his illness). Thomas was held at the Florida State Hospital in Chattahoochee, with subsequent hearings scheduled as legal proceedings continued. Because he had not gone to trial yet, Thomas is considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

Soon after Taylon was reported missing, his family started a GoFundMe to raise funds for the search, which was later converted to a fund for funeral costs for both Taylon and Passion. Passion’s mother and great-aunt, Theodosia Brick House, thanked donors and well-wishers, raising $47,782 of their $50,000 goal. In preparation for memorial services, the family ran into an issue regarding the release of Taylon’s body: as the biological father, Thomas Mosley was the person to whom the body needed to be released, despite being the accused murderer.

This mirrored a similar situation during the coverage of the Ethan Belcher case in Detroit. To address this loophole, Talon’s family and local activists advocated for new legislation. In April 2024, a law passed allowing a different next of kin in situations involving criminal acts. Passion Jeffrey and Taylon Mosley received a homegoing ceremony on Friday, April 7th, at the First Baptist Church of St. Petersburg, a moving ceremony focused on their lives, before being laid to rest together at Woodland Memory Gardens.