Background: Trinity Poague (Law&Crime). Inset: Jaxton "J.D." Dru (GoFundMe).
Prosecutors in Georgia say a then-18-year-old beauty queen beat her boyfriend's toddler son to death because she "resented" the boy and wanted to form a family with her own children.
The trial of now-20-year-old Trinity Poague kicked off Tuesday in the Peachtree State with opening statements about the death of 18-month-old Romeo Angeles, who was also known as Jaxton Dru Williams or J.D. Poague is charged with murder, aggravated battery and child cruelty. Prosecutors allege the defendant, then 18, beat the child to death on Jan. 14, 2024, at her dorm room at Georgia Southwestern State University, where she was a student.
J.D. was in good health when his father, Julian Williams, then 23, went to Walmart and picked up a pizza around noon that day. But as he was driving back to the dorm, Poague texted him saying J.D. was not breathing. Williams rushed back inside to find the boy unresponsive. He grabbed his son and drove him to the emergency room. Doctors wanted to fly him to a children's hospital in Atlanta, but they were never able to stabilize him and he was pronounced dead.
Prosecutor Lewis Lamb told jurors J.D. suffered catastrophic injuries, including bruises on his head, a fractured skull and a lacerated liver. Key to the case is when — and how — the boy suffered those injuries. Lamb says the brain bleed shows that J.D. had to have been hit in the head within hours of being taken to the hospital. Videos of the boy showed he was fine when his father left for Walmart and pizza. Poague was the sole person with him at that time.
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Another key facet prosecutors are trying to emphasize to jurors is Poague's apparent dislike of J.D.
Lamb described the relationship between Poague and Williams as rocky. A key source of the friction between the two was J.D., Lamb told jurors.
Poague allegedly texted her roommate that day, "I can't stand being around J.D. anymore. He hates me and I hate him."
She was jealous that Williams paid more attention to his son than to her.
"Trinity Poague resented this child," Lamb said, adding that she wanted to start a family with Williams.
Poague allegedly didn't want to embrace that stepmother role with J.D.
"She wanted to have a child or children with Julian Williams," said Lamb. "But not that child."
But Poague's defense attorney painted a far different picture of the series of events that led to the boy's tragic death. Attorney W.T. Gamble argued in his opening statement that his client is also a victim in the case because police and prosecutors jumped to conclusions about her guilt.
Gamble said the injuries likely occurred when J.D. fell off a bed that was 40 inches off the ground the night before he died. People in the dorm heard a child crying that night and his father was allegedly passed out drunk. There was very little food found in the boy's stomach, indicating he may not have felt well in the day leading up to his death, Gamble said.
"In seeking justice in this case, do not let justice be found at the cross of innocent blood," Gamble told jurors. "Trinity Poague is not guilty of the crime she is accused of."
The trial is expected to last two days.
As Law&Crime previously reported, the indictment alleges Poague inflicted blunt force trauma to J.D.'s head and torso with "malice aforethought." It also said Poague rendered the boy's brain "useless" and caused "serious disfigurement" to his liver.
On Jan. 14, 2024, the Georgia Southwestern State University Police Department contacted the Georgia Bureau of Investigation about the death of a child. The unresponsive boy was taken to the emergency room at Phoebe Sumter Hospital in Americus.
After multiple interviews and an examination of the evidence, GBI agents arrested Poague days after the homicide.
Poague was crowned Miss Donalsonville, Georgia, in 2023. She went on to compete at the National Peanut Festival beauty pageant, but she did not place.
"Win or lose, I have gained the world throughout my reign as Miss Donalsonville," she wrote on her Instagram page after the pageant. "To me, that is the best thing Jesus could ever do for me. He blesses me in EVERY SINGLE WAY. The National Peanut Festival title wasn't the crown I was meant to wear. I walked away still being the lovely, comical, achiever miss city girl that I've always been. In this experience I learned, and won. Gratitude. That is all I have throughout this experience."
The Early County News reported Poague has since been stripped of her title.
Her Instagram account says she enrolled at Georgia Southwestern State University in August 2023. Dothan, Alabama, CBS affiliate WTVY reported she graduated from Southwest Georgia Academy, a college-prep school in Damascus.
Poague has been out on bond since shortly after her arrest, something that did not sit well with Williams.
"This feels like a slap in the face to me and my family," he told WALB after her release. "All we want is justice for my son. Letting her out and being free is not right. She took an innocent 1-year-old's life."
