Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

A child's view of life and death

By CHRISTOPHER GOFFARD and THOMAS FRENCH
Published February 1, 2005

[Special to the Times] Aquina Wilkins' sketch shows her and her three siblings holding hands just before a hit-and-run accident on 22nd Street in Tampa last year. The drawing was made a week after the accident, after she was released from the hospital.

[Times files: 2004] Aquina Wilkins had a fractured skull, and doctors inserted a rod in her broken left leg. She attended a news conference with her mother in April.

Last spring, on the evening of March 31, four children were struck down in a hit-and-run accident. Bryant Wilkins, 13, his sister Aquina, 8, and their brothers Durontae Caldwell, 3, and LaJuan Davis, 2, had just left a Tampa community center and were crossing 22nd Street together, heading for home, when they were hit. Aquina and LaJuan were seriously injured. Bryant and Durontae were killed.

Although eyewitnesses reported that more than one vehicle was involved in the accident, investigators have since concluded that only one vehicle - a silver Toyota Echo - struck the children. The driver, they say, was Jennifer Porter, a 28-year-old elementary schoolteacher. Porter has not discussed the facts of that night with the police. She did appear at a press conference, though, and apologized to the children's mother, Malissa Wilkins. Porter was charged with leaving the scene of a crash involving death. Her trial is scheduled for October.

Teams of lawyers - prosecutors, as well as defense attorneys - are now questioning dozens of witnesses, wading through the different accounts of that evening. One potentially crucial piece of the puzzle is a drawing made a week after the accident by Aquina Wilkins, the 8-year-old survivor. At the time, she had just been discharged from the hospital. Her skull had been fractured; she had undergone surgery to have a metal rod inserted in her broken left leg. Still, Aquina was able to hold a pen and move it across the blank legal pad.

Her sketch shows the four siblings holding hands as they cross the street. Aquina is on the far left, then LaJuan, then Durontae, then Bryant. A single car approaches, driven by a woman. As is common with children's art, everyone appears happy. The kids are smiling; so is the driver.

At the top left of the drawing, several adults - including Aquina's mother and a prosecutor - have signed their names, attesting to their presence at the drawing's completion. The signatures hint of the tangled legalities to come: depositions, expert witnesses, oaths to tell the whole truth and nothing but.

But that day, when she began to draw, there was only Aquina, rendering the split second before impact.

[Last modified February 1, 2005, 10:17:38]