A North Carolina 7-year-old was hit and killed by a car. His parents were arrested before they could grieve.

S E E D E D   C O N T E N T

GASTONIA, N.C. — Samuele Jenkins puts on a stoic front during his days at the Gaston County Jail.

"In here, I can't show weakness, so I can't be crying," he said.

That's during the day. At night, he wakes up in tears, tortured by the death of his 7-year-old son, Legend, who was struck and killed when he stepped into a road on May 27.

Jenkins and his wife, Jessica Ivey, were arrested two days later and charged with involuntary manslaughter and multiple counts of child abuse. Their alleged crime: allowing their 10- and 7-year-old children to walk home, two blocks away, without an adult, leading to the younger child's death.

Samuele Jenkins and Jessica Ivey; Samuele with Legend.Courtesy Renea Jenkins

Each parent was initially held on a $1.5 million bond before it was reduced to $150,000.

"I couldn't handle it," Jenkins, 31, said in a phone interview from jail last week.

"I'm suffering in my sleep — when I can sleep. I dream about Legend. I wake up, and I'm in here. It's been about three weeks, and I still have not gotten to really mourn," he said. "I have not grieved."

Jenkins and Ivey, who is pregnant, were handcuffed two days after their son was killed.

"You'd think they'd at least wait until after we buried our child," Jenkins said.

Jenkins said he was "so depressed" that he'd be in jail on the day of the funeral. Then he learned that City Council member Cheryl Littlejohn had persuaded a judge to allow him and his wife to be temporarily released and escorted by sheriff's deputies to say their final goodbyes to Legend in person.

"That provided some relief, gave us some comfort to spend that time with him," he said. "I asked my son to forgive me for not being there for him."

The weight of all this sent Samuele into a tailspin. He said he was under a suicide watch for five days.

Ivey, who also remains in jail, said in a phone interview that the past few weeks "feel like an out-of-body experience," echoing her husband on the difficulty of grieving her child while also worrying about their fate.

"It's always been my worst fear to lose all my children, and now I lost my baby, and then I got thrown right in jail," she said. "It's real hard. We haven't gotten to experience life without him, not really, being in here. I miss him, I miss my husband, I miss my other children."

The charges against Jenkins and Ivey have resulted in a flurry of national attention, with parents asking how much child autonomy is too much and what counts as negligence. Many commenting on the Gastonia Police Department Facebook page question how allowing children to walk unsupervised near their home crosses boundaries when they themselves did so and allow their kids to do so. Others insist the intersection is too busy and unsafe for children. Some cast blame on the police department and interrogate the legality and morality of holding the grieving parents responsible for their child's death.

North Carolina doesn't have a law that addresses when a child can walk unaccompanied by an adult, according to legal experts. The driver of the car has been identified only as a 76-year-old woman. She wasn't charged.

Gastonia police declined to comment to NBC News. In a statement, they said that "there is no evidence of speeding or wrongdoing on the part of the driver, therefore no charges have been filed. The driver continues to be cooperative and the incident remains under active investigation by the Gastonia Police Department's Traffic Division."

"In such cases, adults must be held accountable for their responsibilities to ensure a safe environment for their children," police said in a statement.

Ivey now faces a difficult decision.

"It looks like I may have to plea to the felony child abuse charge and I can get probation. But coming with that, it would be hard to get my children back," she said. "So it's like, what? What should I do? But I'm just ready to get out of here. I'm just so ready to be home with my kids."

How a short walk home turned deadly

It was a cool, rainy day when Legend and his 10-year-old brother were shopping with their mother at the local Food Lion grocery store. They asked to make the two-block walk home, where their father was waiting. She allowed them to do so.

Instead of walking about 100 yards to the right to the crosswalk at Lyon Street, the children sought the most direct route: across West Hudson Boulevard, through the Gaston County Health Department parking lot, on to Lyon Street and then to their home.

They never made it.

A witness said Legend stepped into the street and was struck before his older brother could pull him back. Jenkins was on the phone with the older boy at the time and immediately ran to the scene. Legend was transported to a hospital in Charlotte, about 30 miles away, where he died.

"The doctor said he had a broken leg and some other injuries," said Renea Jenkins, Legend's grandmother. "I'm thinking, he's going to be OK. He's strong and a fighter. So, later, when the doctor said, 'He didn't make it,' oh, God. ... I couldn't believe it."

The family's world was ripped apart. For Renea, Jenkins' mother, it meant going from an empty nest to suddenly having to care for her son's five other children — all while trying to grieve the sudden loss of Legend and advocate for her son and daughter-in-law.

Jenkins, who speaks rapidly and rhythmically, slowed his speech when he talked about returning home from the hospital, days before he was arrested. "My wife and I cried and cried and cried," he said. "I held her, and we just cried."

Questions over criminal charges

Jenkins and Ivey, married for a year but together for 10, have six remaining children and one on the way.

Jenkins has struggled in the past. In 2009, he was convicted of felony aggravated assault with a deadly weapon with the intent to inflict serious injury and served around 220 days in jail, according to the Gaston County Superior Court clerk's office. And in 2022, he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor assault with a deadly weapon with a minor present and violating a domestic violence protective order, the clerk said. He served 150 days in jail. The details and circumstances around both incidents weren't immediately available.

Ivey has a prior misdemeanor with a suspended sentence for resisting a public officer in 2021.

Jenkins and his family are intent on moving past his history. "I have gotten my life on the right track," Jenkins said. "I do know when this is over, I need to get out of Gastonia. I need a fresh start."

His mother added: "As a family, we focus on the fact that he has been doing great, going to church and raising his children. He and we all have moved past that. He's been doing great, and his past has no reflection on this tragedy. None at all."

It's unclear whether Jenkins' criminal history played a role in his and his wife's current charges. The district attorney's office didn't respond to multiple requests for comment.

Three legal experts who spoke to NBC News said cases involving a child's death can be complicated and that it can be difficult to prosecute the parents. They added that initial charges are often negotiated down to lesser offenses or dropped. Two of the three experts were surprised at the severity of the charges and the high initial bond against both of the parents.

Jenkins' lawyer, Charles Lifford, a private attorney and former police officer who also does court-appointed work, said he doesn't see prosecutors reducing the charges and resolving the case related to "a child's death with a misdemeanor conviction. But we can hope."

Instead, he said, he may encourage Jenkins to take a plea deal.

"The best outcome is no prison," he said in a text message. "The strategy — assuming the police report supports it — is terrible judgment/mistake leading to a tragedy. That's assuming a thorough police investigation that shows zero error on the part of the driver.

"In all candor, I sense no one wants to pile on punishment but it's important to hold someone accountable for this child's death," he said.

Lifford also said a high bond may have been issued to keep the couple in jail and allow Gaston County Health and Human Services to investigate.

Jenkins and Ivey will face a probable cause hearing Friday, when the district attorney will share the evidence used to charge them.

Emilia Beskind, a criminal defense attorney in Durham, North Carolina, said criminal histories could be a factor.

Beskind, who said she isn't familiar with the decision-making or decision-makers in the case, said such choices can be influenced by whether the people are perceived as a "good person, bad person, someone who you think is a responsible parent, someone who you think isn't a responsible parent."

She added, "And if you have subconsciously put someone in that box, then you look at all their actions through that lens."

The district attorney could also point to past behavior as a way to prove the charge beyond a reasonable doubt, Beskind said.

Though Ivey has one previous conviction for a nonviolent crime, Beskind said, the district attorney could also point out that she remained in a relationship with someone who does as evidence that she was somehow a negligent parent.

"They do that all the time," she said. "I think we judge women very harshly by that standard."

And while it's unknown what the legal outcomes for Ivey and Jenkins will be, what is certain is that their lives were all changed in a single moment.

To Renea, what happened is clear: "It was a horrible, horrible accident. That's it."

The ripple effect of the tragedy

After the accident, the children have dispersed to the care of relatives. Jessica's family has taken in the oldest child, the 10-year-old who was with Legend when he was struck and killed. The five other children, ages 5 months to 6 years old, are with Jenkins' parents, Renea and William.

Now, Renea and William's red brick home at the corner of a neat, orderly street is full. The kids' energy consumes the place. In the family room, a playpen sits in front of the fireplace. Above it, cartoons play on a flat-screen television. Across the room is a baby seat.

The refrigerator, which used to be replete with leftovers from dining out, has baby formula in it. On the back deck, the siblings blow bubbles.

Renea took an indefinite leave of absence from two part-time jobs. William is the family patriarch, an understated man who would rather stay in the background. He works the afternoon shift at a trucking company, a welcome distraction from a reality that pains him.

"The job is kind of a break," William said. "It gives me some time to not think about all of this."

Their two other children, who live in Washington state, came home as soon as they got the news. Their daughters, Michelle and Makalah, and their friends visit frequently to help with the kids.

"My support system makes me proud," Jenkins said. "I know they are going through it like me. But they are there for us."

Michelle, a mother of two, accepts calls from her sister-in-law multiple times daily. At 9 p.m. most nights, she merges calls from Ivey and Jenkins so they can speak to each other. They are in the same jail; he's downstairs, she's upstairs.

"You can hear the pain in their voices," Michelle said. "Jessica is trying to be optimistic for the rest of the children. Being away from them is tough on her mental well-being, though."

Ivey said that to prevent the older kids from worrying about her, she has told them she's in the hospital.

"I've never been away from them more than a night," she said. "So I'm missing my children and husband, and we lost our son. My head is spinning. I can't even grieve."

Jenkins' parents borrowed almost $7,000 to pay for Legend's funeral. They expected to have that money returned through a GoFundMe campaign that had raised more than $6,000. But the fundraising campaign was suddenly taken down last week.

"People are calling me saying their funds have been returned," Renea said. "We were counting on that money to reimburse our supporters. It's all just a mess."

Asked why the fundraiser was removed, a spokesperson for GoFundMe said it is "working to help ensure the amount raised for funeral & memorial services safely reaches the family."

The charges against Jenkins and Ivey have disappointed some Black residents of Gastonia, who note race relations there have at times been tenuous, civil rights activist John C. Barnett said. Barnett leads the group T.H.U.G.S: True Healing Under God.

"This is a town in a county that refused to celebrate Martin Luther King's birthday until 2003 — 20 years after it became a national holiday," he said, adding that Gastonia police also poured cooking oil on people who were homeless in an incident in the 1990s in which two officers were convicted of assault. "That's just a start."

Both Barnett and Renea Jenkins said that in 2021, a white man, who hasn't been publicly identified, went to work and left his 2-year-old in his car for hours during the summer, saying he forgot the child was there. The toddler died. Gaston County police investigated, but the district attorney didn't press charges against the father, Gaston County public engagement manager Gavin Stewart said.

"I don't want to use the 'R' word," Renea said, referring to "racism." "But similar, sad cases and no arrests, right? So why are my son and his wife in jail?"

As they wait for the outcome of their cases and she is consumed with caring for her grandchildren, Renea keeps a poem the "outgoing, happy little boy" wrote close at hand.

You see what God did for me?

Now, what do you think He will do for you?

All you got to do is trust in Jesus.

Don't you know He died on the cross for us?