A Louisiana woman was charged Tuesday in connection with the death of Quawan “Bobby” Charles, a black teenager whose body was found in a cane field in November. Janet Irvin, 37, faces charges of contributing to a juvenile’s delinquency and failing to report the disappearance of a child, according to the Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Office.
The 15-year-old was reportedly picked up outside his father’s home in Baldwin, Louisiana, on October 30, by two people, whom Charles’s family said were Irvin and his 17-year-old son. Charles’s parents said they did not know the woman or her son at the time and never consented to him leaving with them.
The police had previously released a video showing the moment when they said Charles voluntarily left his home with the two people. The video appears to show someone sitting on the side of a road in front of a house while a silver car passes by. The person then started to run after the car, and the car returned home soon after. Police said three people, including Charles, got out of the car and went into the yard before returning to the car and leaving.
The family claimed that the police ignored their concerns when they reported Charles’s disappearance, speculating that he was at a football game. Police said in a statement on Tuesday that they had not been notified of Charles’ disappearance until the afternoon of November 3. Charles was found dead that night in a drainage ditch in a cane field in Loreauville, 30 minutes from his home.
Lawyers for Charles’s family told CBS News in December that they had obtained an audio recording where a woman they claim to be Irvin admitted not calling the police soon after he fled his home.
“Yes, I should have called the police. I should have gone further,” a woman can be heard saying on the tape.
The family also claimed that Irvin’s son told a private investigator that he and Charles used drugs at Irvin’s home.
“Did he smoke anything, or did he, I mean …?” the investigator can be heard asking.
“Yes, he smoked some marijuana. That was it,” replied a man.
Ronald Haley and Chase Trichell, lawyers for the Charles family, believed at the time that there was enough evidence to arrest Irvin on “a number of charges.” It was your private investigator who recorded the conversation.
“She knew something was wrong and did nothing,” Haley told CBS News in December. “It says a lot about what your involvement was in this case.”
The sheriff’s office said at the time that it did not know about the recording, and the information was not shared.
Local organization Stand Black called Irvin’s arrest a step toward justice, according to CBS Lafayette, Louisiana, an affiliate of KLFY-TV.
“Today is a starting point, but this is a marathon and not a sprint,” said Stand Black co-founder Jamal Taylor. “Now we must mobilize to change the laws that protect against these types of atrocities. We must pass legislation that protects children and laws that reform police accountability ”.
The lawyers for Charles’s family issued a statement on Tuesday, saying: “We will continue to fight, we will continue to defend the Quawan family and we will work tirelessly in our search for justice, transparency and accountability.”
In October, Charles’s family said they believed the police did not take his disappearance seriously because he was black. There was no Amber Alert after he was reported missing, but police said “all procedures were followed”.
“People are angry. People are upset,” said Charles’s cousin Celina Charles to “CBS This Morning” national correspondent Jericka Duncan at the time.
In an earlier interview with KLFY, Baldwin’s assistant police chief, Samuel Wise, said there was no evidence that Charles was kidnapped or that an Amber Alert was needed.
The coroner’s office at the time said the teenager probably drowned and had no injuries before his death. They also determined that the injuries to his face occurred after his death and were probably caused by aquatic animals.
On February 5, a forensic autopsy report indicated that there were no signs of a struggle before Charles’s drowning, but did not go so far as to state how he drowned. “It is possible that the deceased was hallucinating due to psychosis, which led to the disorientation that led to accidental drowning,” said the autopsy report. “The alleged circumstance of saying he was going to kill himself, and the lack of injuries, suggests that suicide could be the form of death.”
But in a statement in response to that report, lawyers for Charles’s family said the only “reasonable conclusion” is that Charles’s death was a homicide. “The only rational and blatantly obvious conclusion here is that there was a crime here,” the statement said.
Irvin remains in the Iberia Parish prison. On Wednesday, a judge set his bail at $ 400,000 on both counts. Police said the investigation into Charles’s death continues and more arrests could be made.
Jericka Duncan contributed to this report.