Two small children found in submerged car.

**AnnaEsse** Tue 17 Aug - 9:57

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/08/17/south.carolina.children.deaths/index.html?hpt=T1

(CNN) -- The Orangeburg County Sheriff's Department is expected to brief the media Tuesday morning on its investigation into an incident where two children were found dead inside a car submerged in a river. Their mother has been arrested.

While the woman described the incident as an accident, Sheriff Larry Williams told CNN Monday that the incident "has a stench of foul play."

State troopers responded to a report of a car accident early Monday and found a Chrysler sedan in the Edisto River near a boat landing in Orangeburg County.

Divers discovered the bodies of the two boys, ages 1 and 2, which were taken from the car and sent to the county coroner for autopsies, authorities said.

Their mother is 29-year-old Shaquan Duley, Sheriff Larry Williams told HLN's Nancy Grace. She was arrested and charged with leaving the scene of an accident.

It wasn't immediately known whether Duley had retained an attorney.

Williams said he couldn't confirm reports that the key was still in the car's ignition, but he said the car apparently was in neutral.

He added Duley didn't appear wet, saying, "She didn't have any evidence that she had been submerged in the water."

The car went off the boat ramp that is about 10 yards to the shoulder of the roadway and sits at a 90-degree angle.

"She said she was going down road and lost control of vehicle and happened to be at juncture where boat ramp was," Williams told Grace. However, he added, "There's no evidence that she ran off the road at any time."

Williams said Duley walked almost a mile before calling for help, where she says she flagged a motorist down to use a cell phone to call in the incident, Williams said. Police are trying to track down that individual.

Duley was questioned "on and off" Monday afternoon and expected to be booked at the jail sometime in the evening, the sheriff said earlier in the day.

The boys' father, who doesn't live at the same residence as the children, has been interviewed by investigators, Williams said. The sheriff said he didn't know the father's whereabouts at the time of the incident.

Duley has a third child, a 5-year-old daughter, who was at the home of her maternal grandmother where they all lived, he said."

hobnob Tue 17 Aug - 16:37

South Carolina authorities say the mother of two dead toddlers confessed to suffocating the children before strapping them into her car and driving her vehicle into a river.

Orangeburg County Sheriff Larry Williams told reporters Tuesday that 29-year-old Shaquan Duley has been charged with two counts of murder after her sons' bodies were pulled from the Edisto River on Monday.

Williams said Duley told police she was distraught after a dispute with her own mother and killed her children by putting her hand over their mouths.
"The children were dead when they were placed into the water," Williams said, adding that there were many inconsistencies in the mother's initial account that she'd been in an accident.

"There was no evidence to be discovered of any accident of any type," he said.

Williams added that Duley, an unemployed mother of three, "just wanted to just get rid of the children" because she did not have the financial means to support them.

"This was a young lady that was in trouble, in trouble in more ways than she realized," he said. "She was in trouble and she didn't know where to turn."

He added that the responsibilities of being a mother were too much for Duley, who showed no signs of remorse during an overnight interview with authorities.

Two-year-old Devean C. Duley and 18-month-old Ja'van T. Duley were dead in their child seats by the time divers got to the car Monday near a rural boat landing on the North Edisto River in Orangeburg, some 35 miles south of Columbia, the state capital.

The Highway Patrol was notified around 6:15 a.m. that a woman needed help getting her children out of a car. Duley, who did not have a cell phone, had walked some distance down the country road by the boat landing and flagged down a passing motorist to call the Highway Patrol.

Williams said investigators thoroughly investigated how a traffic accident could have happened at the boat ramp, about 20 yards upstream from a main road that crosses the North Edisto River in Orangeburg, some 35 miles south of Columbia, the state capital.

A woman who watched divers pull the toddlers' limp bodies out of the car near her home said she couldn't understand why the boys' mother didn't bang on her door for help. Ramona Milhouse, whose side porch door is steps from the river, said at first Monday she thought the boys were unconscious, until she realized their bodies were being taken to the ambulance with no attempt to revive them.

"It sounds fishy to me," the 81-year-old Milhouse said. "If that was an accident, that woman would've been over here screamin' and hollerin' and really raising the devil."

Milhouse said when she and her husband woke up and looked outside, rescue workers were already at the car, and she could see the head of one boy above the water. The car had to come from the boat landing, on the other side of a concrete bridge adjoining her property, and down the slow-moving river, said Milhouse, who's lived full-time at the riverside home for about 35 years.

"It's real low," she said, so it could have taken awhile.

The car windows were up, and she heard rescuers say the ignition was on. She watched as the car was pulled down the middle of the river and hauled onto the bridge with a crane.

Besides the Milhouses, a mobile home and a mechanic's shop are also nearby.

Local residents said they, too, were suspicious.

Shakeyia Baxter said the main road was heavily traveled in the mornings and would have been especially busy on Monday -- the first day of school. Baxter stopped by the boat ramp, which is littered with empty beer cases and discarded soda bottles, on her way home from work to tuck silk flowers into a sign that warns of high levels of mercury in the fish. Lily pads dotted the dingy water by the ramp, and mosquitoes swarmed.

"My heart goes out to them," said Baxter, a 30-year-old mother of two. "I would have been doing everything I could to get those kids out of that car seat."

Duley is set to be arraigned later Wednesday.

Selfish selfish selfish Bitch.
All i can be glad for is that the 2 children were dead before she put that car in the river so they didn't drown.
They should charge with capital murder but no doubt she will plead insanity, diminished responsibility or PND

**AnnaEsse** Tue 17 Aug - 16:46

Thank you hobnob. I'll merge my thread I started this morning with this one of yours. It did all look very dodgy.

hobnob Tue 17 Aug - 18:21

Thanks anna i did do a quick peek but i must have missed your thread. i'll go stand in the corner for 5 mins scratching my butt and picking my nose as we all did LOL ( or was that just me??)

**AnnaEsse** Tue 17 Aug - 18:24

hobnob wrote:Thanks anna i did do a quick peek but i must have missed your thread. i'll go stand in the corner for 5 mins scratching my butt and picking my nose as we all did LOL ( or was that just me??)

Hobnob, I'm havin' me tea! Another susan smith 294124

**fishie** Wed 18 Aug - 19:27

chathousenews.

Pictures of Murdered Toddlers Released, Mother Due in Court

Posted by Kats on Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Labels: Shaquan Duley

2-year-old Devean C. Duley and 18-month-old Ja'van T. Duley. Pictures released by Simmons Funeral Home in Orangeburg, SC

ORANGEBURG COUNTY, S.C. --

A South Carolina woman accused of suffocating her children before strapping them into a car and pushing it into a river is scheduled to make her first court appearance Wednesday afternoon at 2pm.

Shaquan Duley faces two counts of murder in the deaths of her two toddler sons, the Orangeburg County sheriff said. Police identified the dead children as Ja'van T. Duley, age 1, and Devean C. Duley, 2. Officials with Simmons Funeral Home in Orangeburg say services will be held at 11 a.m. Friday at St. Paul Baptist Church
Duley's attorney, Carl B. Grant, said Wednesday morning he hasn't had the opportunity to review any of the evidence against her.
Grant says it's important for the public to remember they don't know the whole story, despite the comments from authorities.
Investigators said Duley, 29, was unemployed, single and apparently fed up with criticism from her mother when she allegedly smothered her children, strapped their lifeless bodies into car seats and submerged her car in a river.
Meanwhile, officials released 911 calls from witnesses.
"A car ran in the pond and got kids in there," one caller said. "We need help fast, please."

Orangeburg County Sheriff Larry Williams told reporters Duley had no means of taking care of her children.
"She lives with her mother, and her mother was a very, I guess, firm individual," Williams said. "She often talked with her daughter about, I guess, maybe being more of a mother or being more reliable."

Mother and daughter argued the night before the children's bodies were found early Monday in Duley's Chrysler sedan, Williams said.

"We believe this is a direct response (to the argument) from Ms. Duley," he said. "I believe she was just fed up with her mother telling her she couldn't take care of the children, and she wasn't taking care of her children, and she just wanted to be free."
However, he said, "this wasn't a hardened criminal. This was a young lady in trouble, in trouble in more ways than she realized."
Duley has no previous criminal history, he said.
Her third child, a 5-year-old daughter, was at the home of Duley's mother.

Duley told authorities she smothered the boys by putting her hand over their mouths at the Trumps Inn in Orangeburg, South Carolina, Williams said. She drove them to the river while "trying to find a way to discard the bodies," he said.
"She just wanted to get rid of the children, as sad as it may be," Williams said.

Authorities do not know how long the boys had been dead before they went into the water, he said.
Duley initially reported that she had lost control of the car and it had rolled into the river. But authorities believed her story didn't add up from the beginning, Williams said. Her clothes were dry, he said, and there were no skid marks or other indications of an accident at the scene.

Authorities responded to a report of a car accident near a boat landing on the river Monday, and divers found the children's bodies.

Williams described Duley as distraught, but said she showed no signs of remorse.
"I don't believe she woke up and said, 'I'm going to the Shillings Bridge Road to get rid of my children,'" he said. "Of course, that hasn't been determined. I believe she was just angry, upset and for some reason found the boat ramp, but mind you the children were deceased ... so (she was) trying to find a way to discard the bodies."

The father of the two children has not been found, Williams said. Duley "was more or less being mother and father for the children," he said.

The South Carolina Department of Social Services has no record of prior involvement with Duley, department spokeswoman Marilyn Matheus said.

The incident has striking similarities to a 1994 case, also in South Carolina. The bodies of Michael Daniel Smith, 3, and 14-month-old Alexander Tyler Smith were found in their mother's car, still strapped into their car seats, in a lake in the town of Union, South Carolina.

Their mother, Susan Smith, was convicted on two counts of murder, but jurors spared her the death penalty and sentenced her to life in prison.
We spoke with Dr. Roger Rhoades today, a licensed senior therapist at the PACE Center in the Upstate.

He says this is an extreme psychological case where a woman is completely overloaded and doesn't feel she has the release she needs to deal with her problems.
He also says things could have been different if she sought support or if family members recognized her mental disorder early on.

**AnnaEsse** Wed 18 Aug - 19:33

That expert on the video with his mumbo-jumbo! Putting the children into water like going back to a pre-natal state? No, she just wanted to get rid of them and for it to look like an accident.

**margaret** Wed 18 Aug - 19:34

Bitch wants the electric chair.

hobnob Wed 18 Aug - 21:29

strap her in a car and let it roll into the river at the same point and let her know what it would feel like

**malena stool** Wed 18 Aug - 22:21

hobnob wrote:Thanks anna i did do a quick peek but i must have missed your thread. i'll go stand in the corner for 5 mins scratching my butt and picking my nose as we all did LOL ( or was that just me??)