LAURYN DICKENS - 9 Months (2010) - Memphis TN

Lauryn Dickens murder: Mother indicted, dogs hit in the apartment


This is an older case, but it needs a lot of attention. The mother, Shakara
Dickens claims that she gave her child, Lauryn to an unknown woman.

Apparently and a lie, Dickens says that she was told to do so on the
word of the babies father, another jail inmate Benjamin Norfleet. She
said that Norfleet sent the lady to get the child and she gave the child
to her on 7 September 2010. Of course this is a lie as the father of
the child had not talked to Dickens for weeks. On 15 September 2010,
Dickens filed a missing child report with LE.

On 19 September 2010, Dickens was seen out at a bar in the area partying.
Dickens cousin, Kayla Davidson said. She also wants answers and beleive
that member of the family knows then they are letting on to.

According to information, a cadaver dog had hit on spots in the apartment where
Lauryn was last seen, detecting decomposition in the apartment. [We
know that means nothing anymore] Dickens has been indicted on murder
charges.

Also the grandmother of the missing child, Tracey
Dickens is NOT cooperating with Law enforcement. [I guess I will never
figure these people out who claim to be GRANDPARENTS]

Dickens was also charged with theft of a vehicle in 2009.

Dickens also has another child, a little boy.Lauryn has yet to be found! She is believed to be deceased.

Shakara Dickens is behind bars charged with aggravated child neglect,
endangerment and false reporting, and first degree murder. She is held
on $2,000,000.00 bond.

http://humbleopinionforum.net/tag/shakara-dickens/

SET T 03/12/2012 03

http://jssi.shelbycountytn.gov/

Trial begins Monday for a Memphis mother accused of killing her baby
girl. Investigators arrested 21 year old Shakara Dickens a couple weeks
after she reported her 9 month old daughter missing in September of
2010.

Dickens faces a slew of charges including first degree murder and aggravated child neglect and endangerment.

It's been 18 months, since little Lauryn Dickens disappeared.

"Our
family has endured unimaginable pain. There's no greater torture than
when an infant is missing. You just don't know what's going on, what she
may be suffering." said Tracey Dickens.

This time a year ago,
the baby's grandmother, Tracey Dickens sat down with News Channel 3.
The infant and her mother, Shakara Dickens, lived with the grandmother.
But one day Tracey returned home from an out of town trip and found
Shakara had moved out and into a Raleigh apartment.

Dickens
says, her daughter told her she gave Lauryn to a woman she didn't know,
because the infant's father who was in jail told her to do so.

"I
know it sounds amazing but she was in a very difficult place at that
time, having full responsibility for both children and trying to live on
her own." said Dickens.

Police reports show, the two parents
hadn't spoken in weeks, but before they stopped talking, Shakara told
the father she couldn't care for the baby.

"She was asking for
help because being a teenager with limited income and a toddler. It's a
lot to be repsonsible for." said Dickens.

Within weeks of
Lauryn's disappearance, a search warrant showed a cadaver dog sniffed
out decomposing human remains at Tracey's apartment.

Despite no clues leading to a smiling little girl, Dickens is faithful, Lauryn is still alive.

"My hope is that someone knows where the baby is and they'll show up with her soon." said Dickens. If convicted, Shakara Dickens faces life in prison.
http://www.wreg.com/news/wreg-mom-accused-of-killing-her-baby-heads-to-court-20120318,0,3389383.story

There was emotional testimony in court Wednesday in the case of a Mid-South mom on trial for murdering her own child.

Prosecutors displayed 59 pages of text messages.

They say the texts prove Shakara Dickens was not worried about her daughter while everyone else around her was.

With her mother, Tracey, on the witness stand, Shakara Dickens looked on solemnly.

Tracey
testified about a series of text messages she shared with Shakara. In
those texts Shakara gave different explanations for her daughter
Lauryn's whereabouts before finally settling on one.

"She told me she gave the baby to a lady Ben had sent to take care of the baby until he got out," Tracey said.

"I
said, ‘Why would you trust a complete stranger and give your child to a
complete stranger,'" said Lt. Cindy Capps, of the Memphis Police
Department's Missing Persons Bureau. "She said, ‘Because of those words
she said that I came from Ben. So that meant, obviously, she knew my
child's father, Benjamin Norfleet. So I felt at ease and gave her my
child.'"

Norfleet was in jail at the time and investigators say he never instructed Shakara Dickens to give away the child.

"Over the course of 12 days he made 7 attempts to call her and each time her phone number was blocked," said Capps.

On cross-examination, Tracey Dickens explained that she's not happy.

She testified that she thought police were more interested in charging her daughter quickly rather than finding little Lauryn.

Shakara Dickens paid close attention when Norfleet took the stand.

"Me and Shakara had a little girl named Lauryn," said Norfleet.

Norfleet
was in jail with Lauryn Dickens disappeared. At the time, Shakara
Dickens told police Norfleet sent an older woman to take the baby away.

"I'd never do that, period," said Norfleet. "Never would do that."

Prosecutors
allege Shakara Dickens killed her daughter and disposed of the body.
They relied heavily upon circumstantial evidence that includes the
testimony of Ed Apple, whose search dog detected the scent of decomposed
human remains both on the doorstep and near the crib during a search of
Shakara Dickens' apartment.

Defense attorneys argued the dog never found human remains and cannot determine which person the scent came from.

Although serving a six-year prison term on a car break-in conviction, Norfleet said he misses his daughter.

"I loved her, man, like I never loved anybody else," he said. "She was my heart."

http://www.wmctv.com/story/17213886/grandmother-of-murdered-girl-testifies-in-trial

A specially trained black Labrador named Sam detected the scent of
human remains in the apartment and on the automobile of a young mother
accused of killing her 9-month-old daughter, jurors were told Wednesday.

Ed Apple has trained search-and-rescue dogs for more than 15 years
and his canines are veterans of body-recovery efforts at the Oklahoma
City bombing in 1995, the Pentagon on 9/11, the Columbia Space Shuttle
disaster over Texas in 2003, Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and numerous
floods and other natural disasters around the Mid-South.

This week, in the murder trial of Shakara Dickens, Apple testified
that his Lab, trained to detect the scent of human remains, "alerted" on
the woman's Raleigh apartment and on the trunk of a car she drove.


If the dog detects or "alerts" on such a scent, he turns around and
sits. "Sam was trained to alert when I'm not around and stay there,"
Apple said, adding that he has trained more than 400 dogs since 1964,
initially for hunting. "He will sit there for as long as 20 minutes and
wait for me."


Although a scent was detected, no human remains were found, he said. The child's body still has not been found.


Apple's testimony came on the second day of testimony in the first-degree murder trial.


Dickens, 21, aroused suspicion in September 2010 when baby Lauryn
went missing and the mother gave family and police at least three
different accounts of what happened, all of which proved to be untrue,
authorities said.


She said she gave the baby to the father's parents, then said she
gave the baby up for adoption and finally said she gave the baby to an
unknown woman at the direction of the baby's father who was in jail at
the time.


"She said Ben (the baby's father) had sent a white lady to pick up
the baby because she could no longer take care of the baby," the
defendant's mother, Traci Dickens, told the Criminal Court jury. "She
didn't have any contact information (for the woman.)"


A scowling Traci Dickens added, however, that she does not believe
police did all they could to find the baby and that authorities were too
quick to charge her daughter with a crime.


Defense attorney Arthur Horne: "You seem a little angry, correct?"


Dickens: "Yes."


Horne: "You felt there was a rush to judge your daughter?"


Dickens: "Yes."


The baby's father, Benjamin Norfleet, who was in jail at the time on
burglary charges, said Wednesday he never told Shakara Dickens to give
their baby away to anyone and that he was unable to reach her by
telephone during the time baby Lauryn first went missing.


Phone records indicate Norfleet tried to call her on a jail phone
seven times between Sept. 1 and 12, but that she had blocked incoming
calls from him.


Among a series of text message exchanges shown to the jury, Shakara
Dickens told her mother on Sept. 13: "Would you be mad if I let some
people adopt Lauryn I didn't even know?"


And later, the defendant messaged: "Don't tell, mama. I'm so ashamed
and heart broke. I'm scared yall gonna look at me different."


Dickens, who has been held on $2 million bond since her arrest, faces life in prison if convicted as charged.


The trial before Judge Bobby Carter continues today.
http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2012/mar/21/memphis-police-too-quick-blame-daughter-death-miss/?CID=happeningnow