REMEMBERING TAVARIS

Tavaris Michael Edwards entered the world on October 15, 2014. He was a twin. For the first ten weeks of his life, Tavaris had his twin sister beside him, another tiny baby beginning life at exactly the same time he was. Ten weeks is such a small amount of time. Tavaris never reached his first birthday. He never learned to walk or talk. He never had the chance to grow alongside his twin sister and experience the relationship the two of them might have shared as they grew older. At his age, Tavaris had only the most basic ways of communicating. When he was hungry, uncomfortable, frightened or needed to be held, he cried. He relied entirely on the adults caring for him to understand what those cries meant. Instead, according to investigators, crying became the reason his mother gave for attacking him. Tavaris deserved the gentleness every newborn deserves. His twin sister deserved it too. Neither baby should ever have known fear or pain at the hands of the two people responsible for protecting them.

TAVARIS'S STORY

On Christmas night in 2014, emergency responders were called to the Edwards family's home in Billings, Montana. Kayla Edwards had called 911 and reported that her infant son had stopped breathing. Emergency personnel arrived at the home at approximately 8 p.m. and began trying to save Tavaris. The ten week old baby was blue and unresponsive. He was transported to St. Vincent Healthcare in critical condition. Medical personnel immediately noticed injuries on his tiny body that they considered suspicious, and law enforcement was notified. Initially, Tavaris's parents denied knowing what had happened to him. Kayla reportedly told investigators that she had been changing Tavaris's diaper when he suddenly began gasping for air and turning blue. Brandon initially said he had not witnessed anything that could explain his son's condition. But the accounts began to change as investigators questioned them. According to charging documents, Brandon eventually told investigators that he had heard Kayla yell at Tavaris to be quiet while the baby was crying. He said he then saw Kayla strike Tavaris forcefully in the back of the head and put her hands around the baby's neck. Tavaris stopped breathing. Investigators alleged that this was not an isolated act of violence. Brandon admitted that both he and Kayla had previously squeezed the throats of Tavaris and his twin sister. He also told investigators that the parents had strapped the babies into their car seats and turned the seats upside down with the infants still secured inside. Tavaris's twin sister also showed signs of injury. Authorities observed multiple injuries to her face, including bruising around her eye, nose and forehead. She was removed from the home and placed into state custody. Meanwhile, Tavaris was fighting for his life.

His condition was so serious that he was transferred from Billings to Children's Hospital Colorado in Aurora. Doctors found severe bleeding and injury to his brain.

Tavaris was placed on life support. Two days after the Christmas night assault, there was no recovery that could save him. At 3:48 a.m. on December 27, 2014, life support was withdrawn and Tavaris Michael Edwards died.

WARNING SIGNS

The investigation following Tavaris's death revealed that the violence inside the Edwards home had not been confined to what happened on Christmas night.

According to the statements Brandon gave investigators, both parents had previously squeezed the necks of their infant twins. He also described the babies being strapped into their car seats and turned upside down. Tavaris's surviving twin sister provided physical evidence that he was not the only baby in the home who had been hurt. She had multiple visible injuries to her face when authorities intervened. Those injuries included significant bruising on her forehead and injuries around her eye and nose. The evidence therefore pointed to something larger than a single moment in which a parent suddenly lost control. Both infants were alleged to have experienced abusive treatment before Tavaris's fatal injuries. I have not found sufficiently reliable evidence showing that child protection authorities, medical providers or another outside agency knew the twins were being abused before Christmas night. For that reason, Tavaris's case is best presented as one involving serious warning signs of previous abuse rather than a documented failure by an outside child protection system.

JUSTICE FOR TAVARIS

Following the investigation, both of Tavaris's parents were criminally charged. Kayla Jean Edwards was charged with deliberate homicide in connection with Tavaris's death and assault on a minor. Brandon Tony Edwards was charged with two felony counts of aggravated assault and one count of assault on a minor. At the time the original Abuse Angels page was written, both parents were incarcerated in the Yellowstone County Jail awaiting further court proceedings.

 

Kayla Jean Edwards

Relationship to Tavaris: Mother

Charges: Deliberate homicide and assault on a minor

Case outcome: A final conviction or disposition could not be reliably verified from the available public records.

 

Brandon Tony Edwards

Relationship to Tavaris: Father

Charges: Two felony counts of aggravated assault and one count of assault on a minor

Case outcome: A final conviction or disposition could not be reliably verified from the available public records.

FOREVER REMEMBERED

Tavaris's story has a piece of his life that did not end on December 27. His twin sister survived. The two babies had entered the world together only ten weeks earlier.

They should have grown together. There should have been photographs of two toddlers standing beside each other. Two children learning to talk. Two first days of school. Two sets of birthdays celebrated every October 15. There should have been years in which Tavaris and his sister could tell people they had been together since before either of them could remember. Instead, his sister was removed from their home while Tavaris lay critically injured in a hospital. She would continue growing without the twin brother who had begun life beside her. That absence is part of what was taken when Tavaris died. The world eventually knew him through police reports describing what adults had done to him. But before there were investigators, criminal charges or court documents, there were simply two newborn babies.

Tavaris was one of them. He had a name. He had a twin. And he had an entire childhood waiting for him. Abuse Angels remembers Tavaris Michael Edwards for the little boy he was and for the life he should have shared with the sister who survived. We remember Tavaris.mWe speak his name. And Tavaris Michael Edwards will not be forgotten.