Crime Weekly - S3 Ep349: Justice for A’Marie Jones | Cleveland Case Raises Outcry

Episode Date: October 15, 2025

5-year-old A’Marie Jones of Cleveland, Ohio, was found brutally beaten, sexually assaulted, and nearly killed after a group of boys, aged 8, 9, and 10, allegedly lured her into a field and assaulted her. Now, her mother is reaching out for help, claiming that some of the boys can't be prosecuted due to their ages, and there have been no arrests. Try our coffee!! - www.CriminalCoffeeCo.com Become a Patreon member -- > https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeekly Shop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shop Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod ADS: 1. https://www.WildGrain.com/CrimeWeekly - Use code CRIMEWEEKLY for $30 off your first box and FREE croissants!

Hey everyone. Welcome back to Crime Weekly News. I'm Derek Levasseur. And I'm Stephanie Harlow. And today's case has not been getting a lot of mainstream media attention and is mostly being discussed on social media. So we wanted to talk about it here and use our platform to raise awareness and hopefully get Amari's story out there. that people are aware this is happening, and it doesn't just slip through the cracks. There's currently an online campaign seeking justice for Amari Jones, a five-year-old girl out of Cleveland, Ohio, who was allegedly brutally assaulted by three older children in September of 2025.

Now, the graphic details have been shared by her mother and Tavia Kenabrew on social media, so we're not putting anything out there that the mother hasn't already essentially approved for it to be out there. And I think with what we're reading here and what we're learning about, as hard it is to hear these details, it's important because it has that shock value to it, which I think will resonate with people and allow it to stick so that we don't forget about it. Yeah. So, like I, we have not seen a lot about this on social media.

So I didn't know about it till you just told me about it 20 minutes ago. Well, you know, I'm on, I'm on TikTok. And I'm not. I think more, obviously more than you, I'm on TikTok. And so these developing true crime stories, they're coming to my attention pretty quickly while they're developing. This one absolutely, it stunned me. It had me just completely speechless. I was disgusted, horrified. So I'm going to read Amari's mother's Facebook post. And then we're going to kind of discuss. Antavia Kenabrew posted on Facebook, quote, on September 13th,

2025, my daughter resided at a trusted family member's residence around the area of 145th in St. Clair, while I underwent a medical procedure. While she was away, I got a phone call for my family member stating that my daughter walked out of her house and she couldn't find her anywhere and that the authorities were contacted. I immediately was filled in panic. I rushed out of my house and arrived to the scene. Soon as I got there, I ran to the EMS truck where I found my daughter unresponsive, bloody with her hair pulled from her scalp, her body covered in bruises, her fingernails

filled in dirt, her eyes filled with blood, her neck showing signs of strangulation, her mouth and lips bloody, her private area filled with debris and dirt, and a big lump on her head. I couldn't believe what I saw in front of me. My daughter did not look like herself. She was traumatized. She was shaken up. A group of bigger kids around ages, eight, nine, and ten, walked up to my daughter, presenting themselves as friends, took her by the hand and walked her to a field that was far away from the residence. In that field, they beat my daughter until she was unconscious. They ripped out her hair. They held my daughter down as they raped her. They also shoved sticks down her throat and down her private area. They stripped her naked and strangled

her with her own shirt. One of the children then proceeded to take out his private area and leave her covered in their urine. They beat her and penetrated her until she was unconscious and unresponsive. One of the three kids ingratiated their teeth on my baby's bottom area to hold her still as they sexually assaulted her. The kids then left her where she was, not telling no adults thinking they succeeded in killing her and they continued playing. My family member, as she was looking for my daughter, saw two of the three children that lives on her street that she had not knew at the time, harmed my daughter, and walked up to them and asked if they saw a little girl. They just stared at her with no remorse and told her no and continued playing, knowing what they had just done to my daughter

as my family member went back to her house, waiting on the authorities. Them same kids, who she had questioned, came to her with their mother, saying they know where my daughter is. Them, two kids that stated they did not know where my daughter was. Now with their mother took my family member to where my daughter was found in that field naked, brutally being penetrated and unresponsive. Her clothes, her hair, and later found her shoes was scattered all around the field. My cousin panicked, placed my daughter in her vehicle, rushed her back to the house and continued waiting for the authorities to get there. My daughter is completely traumatized. I am completely traumatized. These kids broke my daughter's spirit. They took away her boundaries. They penetrated

her and constantly beat her. I never wanted to get the media involved because I didn't want my daughter's trauma plastered everywhere when she has to constantly see what happened to her and what she has been through. And I also trusted that she was going to get the justice that she needed. I am bringing this to the media today because the authorities are failing my daughter. They are trying to tell me that two of the kids can't and won't be charged because they are eight and nine years old, even though they attempted to murder my baby and they raped her and beat her. They're saying legally these two boys cannot be charged. I need help and I need justice for my daughter. I have reached out to legal aid in the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association for

legal help. I also reached out to rape crisis to get me a victim advocate that I was told can help me on the criminal justice side. I have been advocating for my daughter. I'm not getting any help. I also contacted the mayor of Cleveland, Ohio office to try and get help. I have not received any yet. I need you all to understand if them two kids' mothers did not make them boys go back to my family member and let her know where my daughter was at, my baby wouldn't be found right now. My baby wouldn't be alive. They literally tried to kill my daughter. These are not normal kids, themselves, and their parents need to be held accountable. My daughter is not the same. She is having behavioral problems. She is mentally not okay. I am mentally not okay. Me not getting justice for my daughter makes me feel

like I failed her. She is saying suicidal things. She is breaking down. She hates talking about what happened to her and I am breaking down with her. I have set her up with a therapist and also seeking one for myself. I cannot sleep. I can barely eat. I keep repeatedly seeing images of my baby in that field. She's only five in these horrific things. has happened to her. Please help. Please look at this as if this was your own kid. This is not gossip. This is not a funny matter. This is not nothing to not take serious. This is our life. Please help us. There is way more graphic photos of my daughter. When she looked way worse, I'm not comfortable posting. End quote. So Amari's mother posted some pictures along on this Facebook page along with

this post. And she's saying there's even more graphic photos, which based on the description of what happened to this poor five-year-old girl, I imagine that there would be. And the pictures that she did post, were graphic enough. So this is hard, obviously. I mean, it was hard for me to read that statement. It was hard for me. And when she says at the end, please think of this as your own kid, of course I did. And even if I didn't think of it as my own kid, even if you don't have kids, you're still thinking about Amari as a five-year-old little girl having these horrendous things happen to her. And it's just absolutely, it's demonic, it's evil. I don't know where we are at now in as a society where three kids can do this and do all of this and this, what seems to be not a short

encounter, do all of this and not for a second have a crisis of conscience or say, this isn't right, or we have to stop or we have to tell someone or we have to get her help and then leave her there and go about your day playing, like nothing happened. Yeah, my first thought, as I'm sure, it's the same thought that many of you are having is where are the parents, where the parents of these three boys? I don't know if they were siblings. I'm assuming, I'm assuming at least two of them were separate because you said you had two different mothers who responded back there and made them go back. But where did they see this? This isn't

something that you just are born knowing, right? So where did they see this type of behavior? Where was it observed? Where was it learned? Was it TV? Was it movies? Was it a video game? Was it from their own parents? That's something that needs to be researched not only for this case, but just in general so we can obviously prevent it. We have to find out where they learned about these things and thought that in any world that it would be okay. That's that's my first thought. My second thought is law enforcement saying that the eight and nine year old cannot be charged, but the 10 year old can be charged. That doesn't make sense. Something is disconnecting. It's an Ohio thing. I looked it up. Yeah. So it's the 10 years old, 10 years old. I mean, they're all, they're all going to be

looked at as juveniles regardless. That's what I'm understanding. So I'm just going to go off Rhode Island law because that's what I know. Anything under 18 years old, you're a juvenile. There's no like lower scale where it's like, oh, you know what? You're a super juvenile because you were only eight. No, you're a juvenile. Whether you're a juvenile or you're 17, you're a juvenile. You can be tried as an adult, but you're a juvenile by the eyes of the law.

So if it's good for the 10 year old, then whatever the charges are for the 10 year old should also be good for the 8 and 9 year old. So I don't know if there's a disconnect, there's a miscommunication, if law enforcement is actually saying we're just choosing not to charge the eight and nine-year-old because through our investigation, we found that they weren't directly involved and they were more observers. I don't know what the specifics are. But if they have learned through their investigation that all three participated in this heinous act, then all three should be charged. Well, let's take a quick break and then we'll come back and kind of look at the law and what could potentially happen going forward. All right, so let's talk about something that's been keeping my kitchen smelling way too good lately, and that's Wild Green. The baked from frozen box that makes me feel I actually know what I'm doing in the kitchen. Right, exactly. Wild Green is the first subscription box that delivers artisanal breads, pastries, and even fresh pastas, all frozen, all ready to bake in 25 minutes or less.

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Okay, we're back. So looking at the law in Ohio, which is where this crime took place, it looks like, you know, the investigation will start the same way that any investigation starts. The police are going to interview witnesses, gather forensic evidence, take photographs, collect clothing or objects, medical records of the victim, other evidence. They'll likely interview the alleged child suspects with appropriate legal representation. They may order psychological or forensic interviews in a manner appropriate for children of this age. And because the suspects are under the age of 10 or for the suspects that are under the age of 10, authorities must take special care about voluntariness, capacity, confessions, and procedural protections. They might also work with CPS child protective services, social services, psychological experts,

and therapists to assess risks, mental health and capacity. I mean, even you said something like, where do they see this? They're not born knowing this stuff. And Mari's mother said, these aren't normal children. I think we can all agree. Yeah, I think that's established. In my opinion, is one of them the ringleader? Because you're not going to find three kids who are all psychopaths like this to all get together and figure out at the same time they want to do this.

There's going to be one who's kind of pushing it and is kind of, I think, the stronger personality in the group. And they're going to go along with it, which is why you had two of the children, I think, eventually go to their parents. and then their parents had them go and tell the truth. So the one who didn't go to their parents, who kept quiet about it, even though that's horrendous. I mean, it's horrendous to have happen to Marie, but you'd have to also assume that for a child to do that to someone would be a horrible traumatic event. So clearly two of these kids were like, oh man, what the hell did we just do eventually went to their parents? But one of them didn't. And if you ask me, that one is the one who arranged it all, not maybe that he was the only one involved.

or the only one who did something, but that he was kind of the ringleader stoking them all on. Yeah. So from what I have gathered, and I'm not a lawyer, and I'm just looking it up using AI and all these different things

to pull up different sites. When I was talking about Rhode Island, I was thinking about a specific case where we ended up charging a nine-year-old with arson. And so to me, I was like, okay, well, there's no minimum age in Rhode Island. But in fact, I stand corrected

because I'm looking it up here, and if this is up to date, actually in Rhode Island nine years old is the cutoff so if you're under nine in Rhode Island that's the minimum age that you can be charged with a with a felony because they cut it off at nine saying that's the that's the minimum age you can be to be considered competent enough to understand what you're doing here's the difference in Ohio which I do not agree with this so like I just said Rhode Island is nine years old which I think there is an argument that could be made if you're under nine

you may not know what you're doing. We'll talk about that in a minute, right? Because I'm sure there's also going to be people who disagree. But in Ohio, it's 14, 14 years old. That's the minimum age. If I'm reading this right, it's 14 years old that you can be charged with a crime that would be a felony if committed by an adult. Now, if you're 14 or older, that can obviously be transferred to a criminal court. It could be taken out of the juvenile system and moved to an adult court.

court, but if I'm reading this right, 14 years old is the minimum. Yeah, so it says in Ohio there's no minimum age for criminal responsibility, but I hate when they say there's no minimum age. However, there is. There is. For children under 14, they can only be held responsible if they have the ability to understand the wrongfulness of their actions. For children under 10, the juvenile justice system would likely focus on rehabilitation rather

than punitive measures, as they would be seen as lacking the capacity to understand right from wrong. Are we to believe that any child under the age of 10 doesn't understand that hurting somebody to this extent, urinating on them, sticking things into them, beating them, pulling their hair out of their head so bad, their scalp leads, they don't understand that's wrong. That's what I'm to believe here based on this law. I guess what the police told Amari's mother is correct. At this point, the children under the age of 10, which is two of them, they will be most likely handled by the juvenile system, which will focus on rehabilitation rather than punishment.

And that child who's 10 or older, there will be pretty much probably the same thing, honestly. They, they, yeah. It's not going to be, they're not going to spend the rest of their life in prison. And, oh, this is, this is tough. I'm going to, I'm going to say it. even though I don't, I'm going to qualify it by saying I don't personally agree with it. But I do think we represent a large audience. And if there's anything we've learned over the last four and a half years of doing this,

not everyone agrees with us, right? There's going to be discourse in the comment section, which is a good thing. So what I'm about to say is more for the people who feel this way than myself. I'm just putting that disclaimer out there. There are going to be people who listen to what we just said or watch what we just said and come to the conclusion that you just represented, which is these children are more than likely too young to understand the, the significance of what they did. They don't, they might understand it's wrong and that they're hurting someone, but they don't understand

that it's a crime and that it's, it's as extreme as it sounds. And I don't personally agree with that. I don't subscribe to that. But I do think an argument could be made by, a defense attorney or even people in the comments where they say, this is horrific, there should be some accountability. Something has to happen here. They should be, they should be institutionalized at least until they're old enough to go to a court and face some sort of repercussion. Like, you can't like kids like this run around out there. I'm sorry. They should not be in a school surrounded by other kids. I mean, listen, if I didn't make it abundantly clear by that disclaimer, I agree.

with you. I think in the eyes of the law, it may be difficult to charge, but as far as having them admitted to somewhere, also another controversial take that I'm going to go with it, it wouldn't apply to this case, but it could apply to future cases if the law changes, especially if we get enough attention on this case. I would be asking the parents, where were you? And where did they learn about this? Because if there's some type of accountability on behalf of the parents, they're more incentivized to be aware of what their kids are doing and where they are and what they're watching but there's basically we see it even with like the school shootings right it's just like oh you know what plausible deniability i didn't i didn't know they just the kids are being kids and you know

they're a bad kid but it doesn't reflect me no it does especially when we go with younger ages like eight nine years old it's very heavily based on you at that age i got a nine year running around my house right now. I love her very much, Peyton, you're my girl. But she don't know her ass from her elbow. I mean, she's just kind of going wherever we take her. She's learning by our examples. Learning by what you expose her here.

100%. What do we allow her to see, hear, read the conversations that we have amongst ourselves as adults. That's all reflective on me as a parent. So should there be some legal responsibility on the parents' part personally? I think so. I'm interested to hear what you guys have to say about that. But is it going to help this particular case?

No. Is it going to help Amari? It wouldn't help Amari. She's five. Do you know the place where her brain is right now, what this is going to do to her forever? Yeah. And by the way, even if these kids get charged, like even if they charge them to the extreme, there's still going to be a lot of work that needs to be done because in my experience,

just dealing with victims, yes, they want the justice, but it doesn't change what they went through. And although they might feel slightly better for a short period of time, Amari still has to relive that occurrence every single day, every time she closes her eyes more than likely. So whether they're in prison or they're in an institution or they're out walking free, that's still going to have a major impact on her life. And I can only imagine, because I've never been a victim of something this severe, that having them behind bars or locked up where they can no longer hurt you or anybody else could help in that healing process. I don't want to speak for her or anybody else, but I would imagine

knowing that they're physically incapable of doing what they did to you to anybody else would give you some piece. Not a lot, but something. Feeling a slight sliver of safety. Sliver is the best way to describe it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, on that note, from what we both can kind of tell, it looks like the earliest age in Ohio that a juvenile can be placed in the adult courts is 14. There you go. Yeah. And this is obviously a felony. Yes. This is a felonious act. None of these kids are going to face justice in the way that I think any of us believe they should because they're not old enough to go into an adult court. But they also should not be allowed to return to their lives, return to their schools,

return to their friends, return to their routines. Something needs to happen. Not for any, not anytime soon. No. The legal system has limited president for crimes of the severity by such young children because it doesn't happen. It's not as, it's not very common, right, as it should not be. No. 20 years. I've never heard of someone this young committing a crime like this. This is the first time for me.

We've heard, we've heard cases of this happening. I've heard like more child molestation cases. What case are you referring to where an eight-year-old attempted to murder someone? I can't remember the exact case. He actually just got out. I think his name was Eric, but he was young. We covered it? No. Okay. Okay. You heard of it. Yeah. There's cases like this. I mean, you got the Slender Man case too. Yeah. But they were, I think, like, 13, 14. So. I've had child molestation. cases with like 10, 11-year-olds where they molest a six or seven-year-old, and then as that six- or seven-year-old grows up and starts to talk about it, we go back and retroactively, we charge them, but never this young, not a crime this severe. Not in my career. Yeah, so if you just

kind of look through it, in 1929, there was a six-year-old who killed someone. You know, this is going back to 1800s, 1900s. But in January of 2022, there was an unnamed boy who shot a 32-year-old Brandon Raspberry. Actually, I know this case. I was just looking into it. Virginia Hudson, seven years old in 1887. I'm kind of looking through Amarjit Sada, who was eight years old. This is in 2007, a different country. Some instances of this actually scrolling through the list a lot more than I thought there would be. But, yeah, it happens. But not enough, I think, to kind of like change the whole law,

because obviously these are outliers at this point. And like you said, something happened to them or they were exposed to something consistently, not just once. This is not I just saw a horror movie once or saw a weird video online once and then turned into a psychopath. This is you're consistently exposed to something that's causing you, to act. Yeah. So if there was a law in place where detectives could say, okay, we can't charge them. However, if we can prove that the parents are indirectly responsible for this by interviewing

them, the parents and the children, we could potentially charge the parents. And if they were able to do that, not only would it allow someone to be held accountable for what happened, it would also serve as a deterrent for all the other negligent parents out there who are conducting themselves in a similar manner because this is not an isolated incident. I saw this every day in my career where I'd be driving down the road in my patrol car and I see a kid in his diaper walking down the sidewalk, four or five years old, pull over and say, where's your mom and dad? The kid can't even speak. I pick him up. Yeah, why was five-year-old Amari outside on supervised? She's too young for that. I mean, I'm not trying to... Well, that is another question. Yeah,

like what happened there? Yeah, I'm not trying to blame anybody, but I mean, you would expect neighborhood kids. I used to live in a neighborhood when my son was about the same age and they'd go out and they'd play, ride their bikes. They're like getting sticks and playing with each other and they'd be gone for a few hours, come in for a snack, get a water, go back out. But a five-year-old never what I love. Five's too young in my opinion. Five's way too young to be out there. Maybe we're helicopter parents, but I don't know. In the comments, you guys can tell us what you think. But yes, there's a lot of parents out there who are not monitoring what their children are doing, watching, reading, scrolling through on their phones or iPads. We need to

need to have some level of accountability as parents. And for some people, it's not going to be enough to just use common sense. There needs to be a law in place so that they know there's repercussions if their child goes out there and does something stupid. But I really want to hear your guys' thoughts on this one because I think it's going to be an interesting topic discussion in the comments. I think there needs to be some sort of exception, not the rule law, whereas in like, yeah, generally we're not going to charge, you know, certain individuals of certain ages with these crimes. We're going to focus more in rehabilitation. But for something like this, like there should be a law in place where if it's like if the act, the felonious act is just

so incomprehensible and so violent and so horrendous, we're going to need these kids to be institutionalized for a period of X amount of years and then we're going to have to revisit that once they reach the age where they can be looked at as adults. I genuinely think that. And obviously the balance between community safety, right, protecting the public, protecting the victim. And the rights of these juvenile offenders, especially these very young juvenile offenders. This is going to be a central dilemma in this case. And at the end of the day, we have, I think, a very clear miscarriage of justice if nothing happens to all three of these kids. Something needs to happen with all three of them. And so on that note, we're going to have Shannon put the petition on screen

where you can find the petition for change. And also, if you'd like to donate to Amari's family and help in her future struggles. Yeah, go support her on her Facebook page as well. Yeah, absolutely. And we'll put it in the description box as well. And by the way, just so I don't forget, if this isn't being done, at minimum, DCYF needs to be involved for these three children to see what their conditions are at home, how this was allowed to happen, what's going on there, what did they see? So even if it's not a criminal act at this point, and legislation needs to be changed. changed. DCYF, this is a perfect case for them where they can look at these kids' home environments,

see what they're in, see who they're around, and make a decision whether or not to remove them from the home and place them somewhere else. If it can't be an institution, maybe it can be some type of facility where they can be monitored so they're not around every other kid out there where someone else can become a victim. So I'm sure DCYF is aware of this. If not, they should be, and they should be heavily involved with this one. So, yeah, like Stephanie said, way in down in the comments below, the document is up there, go support the family, let them know that you're here for them. Sometimes that can go a long way. And if there's a major update in this case, we will absolutely let you guys know. But until then, everyone stay safe out there. We have a new

case coming next week. Stephanie, do you want to tell them about it or do you want to just let it hit you? I think I just saw the name come across. You just sent me the first script. Do you want to at least say the name or do you just want to wait? No, I'm going to wait. And it's got a sort of Halloween like aesthetic to it. So I wanted to pick something that kind of, you know, tied into the season, but was still true crime focused. So yeah, you have to come back and see. Come back and check it out. By the way, speaking of Halloween, I'm going to mention it on Crime Weekly as well. Halloween merch. I'm wearing it right now. Stephanie, yours is on the way. I do want to apologize and also say thank you at the same time. We sold out in one day. That's amazing. Sold out in one day. That was on me.

I underestimated how many people would want the sweatshirt. If you go on Criminal Coffeeco.com right now, you can click on the sweatshirt and click the Notify Me when in Stock button. So they're going to go. I didn't order a ton. There's already hundreds of people who've reached out and said it was sold out. So as soon as they come in, they're going to go. So if you want to be one of the first, click that button.

This will probably be our last run. We might do one more, but it's getting close to the end of the month. So we'll see. But thank you and also, I apologize. We'll be back later this week with a new series from Crime Weekly. Until then, have a good night. Bye.