Mesac Damas in North Naples, FL confessed to killing his family.

Udut, Kenneth on Sep. 20 2009 edit · delete
NAPLES — The father of a man sought by Collier authorities in the slaying of his wife and five children in North Naples told the Naples Daily News this morning that his son is now in Haiti.

When reached at his East Naples home Sunday morning, Jean Damas Sr., the father of Mesac Damas, confirmed that the children killed were his grandchildren and his daughter-in-law.

In an emotional, brief interview that ended at the request of other relatives, Jean Damas Sr. said his son is in Haiti now.

When asked why he believes that, he said: “He (Mesac Damas) called his brother from there.”

Before the brief interview ended, Jean Damas Sr. didn’t specify when that call was made.

Earlier in the interview, Jean Damas Sr. said his family is in pain.

When asked if he thought his son may have killed his family members, he paused and said, “yes, yes, I do.”

He said his son and his wife have had domestic problems.

“Since then, the wife no have any respect … no respect,’’ he said in broken English.

“No listen ... He think his wife has somebody else ... Jealousy,’’ he said in broken English.

Jean Damas Sr. said he hasn’t talked to Mesac Damas since Tuesday morning when Mesac Damas dropped the children off at the grandparents’ house in East Naples, in the Naples Manor area.

Collier deputies have asked for the public’s help in finding Mesac Damas, 33, after the five children and a woman were found slain inside a North Naples apartment complex Saturday night .

Detectives found Mesac Damas’ wife and five young children dead inside their residence at 864 Hampton Circle around 6:30 p.m. Saturday, according to Collier County sheriff’s officials.

The Sheriff’s Office said details will be released as they become available and a press conference is planned later this morning to update the public on the case.

Records on the Collier County Clerk of Courts Web site show Damas has prior charges for domestic violence in June 2005 involving his wife, Guerline Dieu, and children -- Mesack Obo Damas, Maven and Marven.

Damas also brought charges against Dieu for domestic violence, the Web site records show, but the November 2006 case never moved forward because he failed to appear in court.

Some of the children were students at Osceola Elementary School, neighbors said.

Udut, Kenneth on Sep. 21 2009 edit · delete
NAPLES — Three of the five children being mourned were part of a tight-knit school community where they were loved, say administrators at Osceola Elementary School.

“They were just the most polite boys ever, the most pleasant boys,” said Melanie Fike, assistant principal. “They were just very happy — smiling and happy to be in school.”

Likewise, their mother was very involved in their education, attending teacher conferences, curriculum nights and asking what she could do to enrich her children’s education at home, Principal Jody Jordan said.

Guerline Damas, 32, and her five children Michzach, 9, Marven, 6, Maven, 5, Megan, 3, and Morgan, 11 months, were found slain in their home in North Naples Saturday. Mesac Damas, 33, the father and “person of interest” in the case is believed to be in Haiti following a Friday morning flight.

Fike said the only time she talked to Mesac Damas was in the summer, when he came to register his youngest son for kindergarten.

“We had a very normal conversation, just about how much we enjoy having his sons here at school,” said Fike.

Fike and Jordan said the boys, Michzack, Marven and Maven, were last in school on Thursday. Their two youngest siblings had not yet reached school age. Michzack and Marven came to the school in March of last year, after transferring from Lely Elementary School.

Sticking with district policy, an automated message was sent to the children’s home Friday when they were logged as absent. Jordan said parents often call the school to explain a child’s absence, but it is not unusual to get no communication following that automated message. She said it is intended more as an informational service for the parents, in case a child was dropped off at school or put on a bus, but played hookey instead.

In the event that a child is absent for several days in a row, Jordan said, the school typically tries to make a personal phone call to a parent to inquire about the child.

Collier County School District spokesman Joe Landon issued a statement Sunday morning informing the public that crisis counselors will be sent to the school Monday morning.

Jordan said the counselors would be on campus by 7 a.m., ready to greet students as they arrive for breakfast, at 7:50, and the start of school, at 8:20. All three boys were regular bus riders, and Jordan said she had identified other children who would have been on the same route; a counselor will greet that bus when it arrives in the morning.

Teachers were alerted Sunday morning about the tragedy, and Jordan said they will be briefed Monday morning about how to handle students who need to see a grief counselor. Counselors will specifically be sent to the classrooms of each of the three boys, who were in third grade, first grade and kindergarten, respectively.

A statement will be made about the children on the morning news announcements, Jordan said, and the school will observe a moment of silence.

The three boys were well known and well liked around school, said Jordan. Michzack, who went by Zack, always had a black baseball cap on sideways when he was outside the school walls.

“Most students would know him as the kid in the sideways cap,” said Jordan.

He often visited his little brother’s first-grade classroom to ask Marven’s teacher what he could do to help his brother at home and with his school work.

Marven, likewise was happy-go-lucky and perfectly mannered. When Jordan called him into her office to give him a gentle scolding about running into the street at his bus stop, he agreed politely to stay on the sidewalk and set a good example for his younger brother, Maven.

At the school Monday, teachers and administrators will be working as sensitively as possible to identify who needs help and how best to help them.

“I think what worries us most is little children internalize things,” said Jordan. “We’re trying to be very careful in how we prepare our statement that we put out to students.”

Grief counselors will also be sent to Lely Elementary School, according to the district, to attend to any children who were friends of the boys at their former school.

“We’re grateful we have a school district crisis team that will be coming in tomorrow,” said Jordan. “Neither Mrs. Fife nor myself has ever dealt with anything of this magnitude.”

Connect with reporter Leslie Williams at naplesnews.com/staff/leslie_williams.

Udut, Kenneth on Sep. 22 2009 edit · delete
DCF saw no hints of coming North Naples horror

By Rachel Revehl and Janine Zeitlin

Guerline Damas' eyes had been blackened.

She had been choked.

Her shirt was torn, and the baby girl in her arms had been knocked to the concrete floor.

That was January.

The incident sparked the first investigation by the Department of Children and Families into the violence inside the Damas home.

Their five children showed no signs of physical abuse, and officials believed the family was healing after receiving in-home services.

But the attacks had erupted before. It ended last week when Guerline and all five children were found slain in their North Naples home.

Mesac Damas, their father and Guerline's husband, had left for Haiti and police named him as the only person of interest in the killing.

The couple's promise of becoming a happy family was lost forever.

Court records and DCF reports show the two were entangled in a cycle of abuse for years.

'Please help me'

Neither Guerline nor Mesac could seem to end their relationship, despite escalating aggression alleged by both.

In a 2005 petition for a domestic violence injunction, Guerline wrote that Mesac vowed to "do something bad" if he wasn't allowed to see the children - Michzach, 9, Marven, 6, Maven, 5, Megan, 3, and Morgan, 11 months.

"Please help me save my life and my kids' lives," she wrote. "... Please help me."

In that same request, she alleged Mesac sexually assaulted her, stole from her and constantly threatened to leave with the children.

"I cannot take it any more," she wrote.

But two weeks later, her story had changed.

"I would like to give him another chance," Guerline wrote. "Please cancel that case."

The injunction was dropped.

At the same time Guerline was filing that injunction, Mesac filed his own, alleging Guerline threatened to "cut herself and call the cops and say I am the one who did it." He said she threatened to take the children to Haiti to live with her mother.

"My kids are my life," Mesac wrote. "Please, please, I am asking you all, do not let her mom and her brothers take the kids."

He said his wife had also threatened to kill him. But two weeks later, he asked the judge to dismiss his request.

"I love her so much," he wrote. "She did a mistake, she brought me here and charge me with domestic violence, which is not true. She feel so sorry about it."

Guerline's brother, Edson Dieu, characterized their arguments as "ignorance." Forends Dieu, another brother, called them "childish."

In November 2006, Mesac filed another injunction request - which later was dismissed by the judge - alleging Guerline was harassing him and his new girlfriend.

He ended it with, "I want a new life."

No red flags

The January case was the first DCF case involving the family. It closed two months later with evidence that Mesac Damas' actions constituted "family violence threatens child."

Child welfare leaders said they saw no red flags in the family's ongoing case to hint of future violence directed at the children.

"There was nothing we saw that indicated anything on the horizon," said Nadereh Salim, CEO of the Children's Network of Southwest Florida, which runs foster care locally.

DCF did not find reason to remove the five children from the home in January, but did seek court supervision and linked the family to intensive in-home services and a case manager.

"There was no anger and there was no abuse toward the children," said Cookie Coleman, who leads the department in Southwest Florida. "There was love and caring from both parents toward the children."

Initial DCF interviews showed the older boys feared their father. The eldest, who went by Zach, tried to protect his siblings from the daily fights.

Zach, then 8, told an investigator that his dad hit him, but he attributed bruises he showed that day to playing outside.

One more chance

"If he tries to call 911 dad hits him on the hand or in the head," reports state. "He will try to run and go to a friend's house but dad usually locks the door and he doesn't like getting hit."

Subsequent reports described the children as free from signs of abuse.

DCF records portray Mesac as a domineering husband. What follows is based on reports released by the agency Monday:

Guerline told investigators her husband never hit the children, but the abuse toward her would sometimes cause her to seek refuge in the car.

Her husband kept her immigration papers and wouldn't file them so she could get her green card.

An investigator told Guerline to call a women's shelter or "risk having the children removed."

Guerline attributed the couple's problems to her husband seeing domestic violence in the past.

The case did not meet criteria to be red-flagged, DCF officials said, though the initial risk was "high."

But things began to turn around. By February, Guerline was in contact with the women's shelter. The mother vowed to do whatever was necessary to keep her children safe.

She told officials she planned to give Mesac "another chance."

"They want to live as a happy family," DCF records noted.

By April, Mesac had returned to the family home after a judge lifted a restraining order.

He was enrolled in anger management and domestic violence classes.

'No safety concern'

Mesac told Carmen Farr, the clinician assigned to visit the family twice weekly through the Children's Network, that he had made a "terrible mistake."

Farr noted that Mesac had made "great progress."

On her final visit in May, Farr reported seeing how the children loved their father. Officials said case management made more than monthly visits since then.

Mesac finished parenting classes by July and was slated to complete domestic violence classes by fall.

Case manager Manju Nath's final contact with the family was Wednesday after finding a scene that painted them as a happy family. Dinner was already cooked on the stove.

Morgan, the baby, who was dropped from her mother's arms during the violent episode in January, was playing with a doll.

"There is no safety concern, children are doing fine," Nath wrote.

Two days later, Guerline's sister called a case manager supervisor after Guerline didn't show at work. When the supervisor arrived, no one answered the door.

---

The Southwest Florida community is shocked, saddened and angered at the news of a North Naples mother and her five children being slain in their home, while her husband and their father, believed to be in custody in his native Haiti on Monday afternoon, is described by investigators as a person of interest.

A press release at that time from the Collier County Sheriff’s Office speaks volumes. "It is important to note that Mesac Damas has not been charged with a crime relating to the deaths of his family members,’’ the statement says. "However, today the Collier County Probation Department issued an arrest warrant for him today for violating probation on a January arrest for domestic violence."

For Collier County Sheriff Kevin Rambosk to call the killings "the worst of the worst" of violent crimes in the county’s history, which includes the 1985 Benson family bombing and the 1995 Cracker Barrel murders, is saying something.

Family members say and public records show Guerline and Mesac Damas fought as long as they have been together, for a decade. There have been arrests, restraining orders and alerts for help falling short of actual arrests.

Justice calls for Collier, federal and Haitian authorities to do whatever it takes to get Damas back to this community, where questions abound and even his father believes he is the killer.

Public appreciation is in order for those officials’ cooperation so far.

The same is true for pro-active moves by Collier County Public Schools for grief counseling for the Damas children’s classmates.

We are shocked and saddened at the loss of life. We are angered that our community and its security have been violated.