{"id":295932,"date":"2026-09-29T02:40:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-29T02:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/295932\/"},"modified":"2026-09-29T02:40:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T02:40:08","slug":"trial-against-mother-and-boyfriend-accused-of-killing-4-year-old-in-west-philly-begins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/295932\/","title":{"rendered":"Trial against mother and boyfriend accused of killing 4-year-old in West Philly begins"},"content":{"rendered":"

PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) \u2014 Nearly three years ago, 4-year-old Damari Carter was found dead inside a duffel bag<\/a> in West Philadelphia. On Monday, the murder trial against his mother and her boyfriend began.<\/p>\n

Carter\u2019s mother, Dominique Bailey, told police her son was hit and killed by a car in December 2023<\/a>, but investigators said there\u2019s no evidence to support that. <\/p>\n

A detective took the witness stand and told the courtroom that a tip to a local news station from one of Bailey’s family members started the investigation.<\/p>\n

His body was found inside a duffel bag in March of 2024.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors told the courtroom that they will prove the 4-year-old was abused by his mother and her boyfriend, Kevin Spencer, through inconsistencies in both their statements, along with digital evidence showing the child with bruises.<\/p>\n

Commonwealth lawyers said there is also evidence of deleted texts between the couple, showing they had something to hide.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/ Damari CarterProvided by Darryle Carter<\/p>\n

According to Spencer\u2019s attorney, Bailey showed up at Kevin Spencer\u2019s house one day with Carter and never asked if he could live with him. Spencer\u2019s lawyer said his client provided a clean and safe environment for the boy.<\/p>\n

Bailey’s lawyer told jurors she was a hardworking single mother who had no motive to kill her child.<\/p>\n

The detective also told jurors that Spencer gave him a different name when he searched his home in 2024.<\/p>\n

Spencer and Bailey are facing charges including murder and endangering the welfare of a child.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) \u2014 Nearly three years ago, 4-year-old Damari Carter was found dead inside a duffel bag…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":295933,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[31,783,69,71,70,877],"class_list":["post-295932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-crime","tag-murder","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-west-philadelphia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}