What Happens When Florida Parents Don’t Feed Their Skeleton Baby
What Happens When Florida Parents Don’t Feed Their Skeleton Baby
On Tuesday, May 10th, 2022, deputies with the Polk County Sheriff’s Department, along with members of Fire and Rescue, responded to a call at a derelict home located at 6720 South Orange Blossom Trail in Davenport, Florida. The property, which sat on State Highway 17, contained four ruined houses, a storage trailer, a vast array of vehicles, and large orange signs warning passersby to “Keep Out.”
According to an affidavit, first responders were dispatched to the home for the report of an unresponsive child. At the time of our story, the little girl, who has not been named, was just two months shy of her third birthday. When they arrived on the scene, the little girl was located in an inflatable pool that was being used as a makeshift playpen. Sadly, there wasn’t anything that the deputies or the rescue workers could do for the little girl; she was already dead.
The Parents and Background
The little girl was born on July 25th, 2019, to parents Regis Greg Johnson, age 57, and Ronda Shirley Tillman, age 35. According to one of Ronda’s many Facebook profiles, she also had a baby named Faith who was born a year prior. That child lived in Arizona with her cousins. It’s unclear what prompted the move from Arizona to Florida or why she didn’t have her daughter.
According to reports, the couple had met at church, and Ronda was about four months pregnant with another baby. What’s really sad is that her social media, which is public, is devoid of any mention of her child with Regis or her current pregnancy. At first glance, it seems as if Ronda just liked to play app games all day.
During interviews, Regis told detectives that when his daughter was born, there were some concerns about her health. Allegedly, doctors believed that she shared what he referred to as a “muscular dystrophy gene” with Ronda. According to Regis, he took his daughter to a doctor’s appointment in July of 2021 for testing, but the results came back inconclusive. Regis further claimed that his daughter was last seen by a physician in August of that same year. The father stated that for the past two days, the toddler hadn’t wanted to eat very much, and when he tried to feed her, she would only take a few bites.
Regis said he had placed his daughter in the inflatable pool at around 5:15 a.m., where he left her alone to play with her toys. He returned a short time later; by his own admission, she was cold to the touch and she was not breathing.
When detectives interviewed Ronda, she claimed that she attempted to feed her daughter a turkey sandwich the night prior on May 9th, right before she put her to bed. She, too, echoed Regis’s sentiment that the little girl just didn’t want to eat. She claimed that she had attempted to call 911 prior to Regis’s call and that first responders were supposedly busy. She also added that the child could crawl, but not walk.
Generally speaking, babies usually start walking sometime between 10 and 18 months old. Before walking, babies will usually have been crawling between 7 and 12 months, and pulling themselves up to stand usually between 9 and 12 months. Remember, at the time of our story, Ronda and Regis’s daughter was 2 years and 10 months old. Although there are a number of reasons why a child might have a delay in the ability to walk, none of them would have applied to the toddler in our story.
The Web of Lies Unravels
The detectives next reached out to this little girl’s pediatrician, and this is when Regis and Ronda’s web of lies began to unravel. According to the doctor, this child was last seen in January of 2020 for her six-month checkup. Allegedly, the office staff attempted to make contact with the parents numerous times following that appointment, as there was concern that the child may have cystic fibrosis—not muscular dystrophy as Regis had previously claimed.
During the course of the investigation, the detectives discovered that the Department of Children and Families (DCF) had opened a medical neglect case against Regis and Ronda on December 10th, 2019. According to reports, the toddler was consistently losing weight, and her parents were not following up with doctor’s appointments, which reflected exactly what the pediatrician shared with the detectives. Allegedly, the DCF report indicated that the parents needed to comply with DCF instructions and adhere to a series of weigh-ins with the child’s primary care physician. Following several positive weight checks, DCF eventually closed their investigation.
The Autopsy and Arrests
On Wednesday, May 11th, 2022—the day after her tragic and untimely death—the District 10 Medical Examiner’s Office conducted an autopsy on the child’s body. It was found that at the time of her death, she had no food in her stomach. Now, this wasn’t likely because the little girl didn’t want to eat; it was because she wasn’t being provided proper nutrition.
At almost 3 years old, she weighed a mere 9.5 lbs. This is the weight of some newborn babies. Generally speaking, girls weigh anywhere from 25 to 38 pounds at her age. In the end, the medical examiner ruled that the little girl suffered from long-term starvation. This is more than likely why the little girl couldn’t walk: she was just skin and bones.
Following the autopsy, the detectives circled back and spoke with Regis Johnson. He finally admitted that his daughter’s last doctor’s appointment was indeed in January of 2020, and not in August of 2021 as he previously reported. He told the detectives that he knew his daughter was not gaining weight and developing as normal. Regis further admitted that he knew she was losing weight and was not thriving, and still did not seek medical attention.
That same day, Polk County Sheriff’s Office homicide detectives arrested Regis Johnson and Ronda Tillman. The couple were charged with one count each of negligent child abuse causing great harm. This is a second-degree felony. Regis and Ronda were transported to the Polk County Jail, where they were held without bond.
On Thursday, May 12th, 2022, a third arrest was made in the starvation death. Regis’s brother, 64-year-old Frank Robinson, was taken into custody on one count of negligent child abuse causing great harm and one count of failure to report child abuse, as he was an adult in the same home. This is a third-degree felony. According to reports, Frank lived with the couple. He was aware of the abuse, yet he did absolutely nothing to report or prevent his niece from being starved to death.
The Sheriff’s Press Conference
During a press conference held the same day, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd shared the following message while standing in front of two stacks of colorful children’s toy blocks:
“Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for being with me today. We have to talk about something that’s just horribly sad, and I want you to think about this. I want you to understand that each of these blocks represents one pound. We started an investigation where a child was starved to death… died of long-term starvation. And what shocks our conscience is nothing in this world is more important to us than our children, their growth, and their ability to thrive. They’re the most important, precious thing in our life. They’re innocent, and they depend solely upon us for everything.”
The point of the colorful toy blocks became clear after Sheriff Judd used them to illustrate how heavy the little girl was when she was born, how much she weighed when she died, and how big she should have been at her age:
“So this little girl, this baby girl, was born at 6 lbs and 10 oz. This baby, when it died, weighed 9 lbs. This baby should have weighed 32 lbs. This baby was born on July 25th, 2019. Between July 25th, 2019, and when they took the baby to the doctor in January of 2020, the child had gained three pounds and was thriving. Listen closely to what I’m going to tell you: Between January 2nd, 2020, when the baby went to the doctor for the last time, and May 10th, 2022—which was 2 years and 4 months—that sweet baby gained 1 ounce. 1 ounce.“
He continued:
“So the baby should have been 32 lbs. The baby should have been talking, putting sentences together, asking questions, telling that ‘my diaper needs to be changed,’ running, jumping, and playing. When this baby died on May 10th, she couldn’t stand, she couldn’t talk, she couldn’t walk.”
Next, Sheriff Judd dramatically swiped the larger stack of colorful toy blocks from his podium—the stack that represented how much the little girl should have weighed—and displayed the pictures of the monsters who allegedly neglected her to death.
“To be this big because of these people… This is Mom at 35. This is Dad at 57—allegedly, he was her counselor at church along the way. Oh, he weighed 213 lbs. Ronda Tillman, Mom, weighed 144 lbs. Did I mention to you that she’s pregnant? According to what she says, about four months pregnant. There was food in the house. Regis Johnson, the dad, told us, ‘Oh, the baby ate a sandwich yesterday and some chicken nuggets last evening and drank.’ Well, that’s just a bald-faced lie. When we did the medical examination, that child had zero food in her stomach and only slight traces of fecal matter in the intestines. The child suffered long-term starvation.”
Sheriff Judd then went on to explain the charges against the couple and his department’s plans for the future:
“Regis works for his brother at a business called First Class Car Getters on Highway 17/92 between Haines City and Loughman, and that’s allegedly where they lived. We know that the doctor did the things that he should have. We know that there are investigations underway. We’re doing a lot more investigation… These folks are both charged with aggravated child neglect at this moment in time. Obviously, it is our intention to charge them with the appropriate murder charges… On this fateful morning, the ‘Father of the Year’ called 911 and said that his child wasn’t breathing. We talked to Mom; she said she’d called 911 before, but they were busy. They made admissions, they defended their actions. But I want you to understand that this baby, this little girl, this child that should have been thriving, gained one ounce in 2 years and 4 months. Basically, it was just bones and skin.”
Sheriff Judd then asked an important question that I’m sure most of us are wondering: How did no one observe this child in the condition she was in, and why didn’t anyone act?
“There aren’t adequate words to explain our frustration and our sadness… The investigation is still underway because we have probably the same questions you do: Did no one else see this child in this condition? This child just didn’t get sick and pass. People had to watch this child, who should have been up running and playing and talking to Mama and Daddy…”
Current Status and Resources
In the wake of the toddler’s death, Terry Saunders, CEO of Heartland for Children, shared the following:
“This is a case of why a strong child welfare system with a stable workforce, adequate resources, services, and support is so important. There are still a lot of questions that need to be answered to understand the full picture.”
Heartland for Children is a community-based care lead agency which contracts with the state to place kids in foster and adoptive homes. Like in many cases that we cover, there haven’t been many updates in the media on this; most outlets stopped reporting on the story in 2022.
We ran a few searches on the Polk County Sheriff’s Office inmate list and found a few bits of information worth mentioning:
Ronda Tillman is currently being held in the Central County Jail. Currently, her charges include aggravated child abuse, battery, and aggravated manslaughter of a child. She was also indicted by a grand jury for first-degree murder. All three charges have a disposition of “incompetent to proceed.” There’s a fourth charge of aggravated manslaughter of a child that’s listed as a duplicate. It’s unclear what happened to the baby that she was carrying at the time of her arrest, but I hope that it got the care that Sheriff Grady Judd mentioned in the news conference.
Regis Johnson is also being held in the Central County Jail. He was indicted by a grand jury for first-degree murder, aggravated manslaughter of a child, and aggravated child abuse battery. He also still has his original charge of negligent child abuse causing great harm.
Frank Robinson, on the other hand, was released on $1,000 bail for his two original charges. It also appears he is subject to GPS monitoring.
As this case develops, we’ll keep an eye out for updates as they become available.
In closing, we’d like to focus on one point that Sheriff Grady Judd has touched on many times in many of the cases that we’ve covered: If parents don’t want their child, there are resources available to them, such as Safe Place locations, fire stations, social service facilities, and many more.
According to Nikki Daniels, who is the associate director for Champions for Children in Tampa, neglect and abuse often happen when parents are isolated and struggling to bond with their children. In addition, the stigma surrounding asking for help can keep people from reaching out. She said, “Our belief is, and the research shows, that if you are attached and bonded with your child, if you have love for your child, you’re not going to hurt your child or you’re not going to let anyone else hurt your child.” Her organization offers a variety of services ranging from parenting classes to child development classes and bonding activities.
As always, if you see something, say something. Frank Robinson saw something, and rather than call 911 or feed that baby, he turned a blind eye and let her die in a kiddie pool in an abysmal property. She’ll never get to see her third birthday, go to school, or learn to ride a bike—all because of the actions of two individuals who were supposed to care for her, and an uncle who couldn’t care less. Don’t be like Frank.
Well, I can tell you as a Christian, the only solace I get out of this whole thing is this child is no longer starving or sick, but that she is in the arms of Jesus, where as Christians we believe she’s well. And hey, again, what would Heaven be like if you didn’t have children?
