in an abandoned Northwest Indiana house had been forced into a cold shower by a relative as punishment before he died, Lake County prosecutors told a judge Sunday.
That sibling, Jeremiah R. Perry, 20, was charged with aggravated battery causing great bodily harm to a child younger than 12, concealing a homicidal death and obstructing justice, according to authorities. A judge ordered him held on $3 million bail during the hearing, said Jim Newton, a spokesman for the Lake County state’s attorney’s office.
Another of Damari’s siblings appeared in Lake County juvenile court Sunday on similar charges, but Newton declined to provide details on that case. Despite the boy’s troubled state, no one in the house sought medical attention and he later died from his injuries, officials said. After Damari’s death, his family took his body to an abandoned house in the 700 block of Van Buren Street in Gary, Ind.