12:41 PM CDT on Tuesday, June 24, 2008

By Rucks Russell, Jeff McShan and TJ Aulds / 11 News

HOUSTON — A Pasadena dad was charged Monday with capital murder in the deaths of his two young children.

Randy Sylvester is being held without bond in the Harris County Jail.

The bodies of Sylvester’s kids, Randy Jr., 7, and Denim, 3, were found burned in a wooded area in southeast Houston late Friday night.

At the time of the kids’ deaths, Sylvester should have been in jail.

Officials said Monday he had already violated his probation for a prior drug offense.

Sylvester had failed to pay his probation fees, never got a job, didn’t perform any community service and did not participate in a drug awareness program.

Under normal circumstances, two to three months of noncompliance would get a case sent back into courts.

But somehow, Sylvester’s was not.

On Monday night, sources confirmed to 11 News that the children’s mother, Jerilynn St. Cyr, has been issued a subpoena to testify before a Harris County grand jury. While not a suspect in her kids’ murders, law enforcement sources said her various statements to police about Randy Jr. and Denim’s disappearances were “inconsistent,” and they are seeking to get her comments on the record.

Before he was charged, Sylvester told the Houston Chronicle that someone else murdered his kids because he failed to pay off a drug debt, and that he just discarded the bodies.

But Pasadena police were skeptical about those claims.

“That particular statement would be especially difficult to reconcile in the face of the fact that according to Quanell X, he made the statement to him that he did it, but it was an accident” Pasadena Police Capt. Bud Corbett said.

This weekend, hundreds of people gathered on a small hillside to say goodbye to the children. As tears streamed down their faces, those who came to the site where the siblings’ bodies had been dumped were left to wonder – why?

“They’re just … They’re children. The little girl’s the same age as my daughter, and it’s just heartbreaking when something so horrible happens to such innocent children,” said mourner Alicia Burns. “It’s just awful.”

Texas Equusearch placed two crosses in the ground near where the bodies were found. One cross is blue, and the other is pink.

Equusearch founder Tim Miller also presented community activist Quanell X with a plaque to thank him for his efforts in finding the kids. It was Quanell X who Randy Sylvester Sr. took to the gruesome scene where he allegedly dumped the bodies of his children.

Rarely at a loss for words, Quanell X’s attempts to talk to those gathered Sunday were halted by his own tears. He has said that this case was like “diving into the depths of hell.”

“I’m angry as hell today,” he said.

The children’s mother tried to thank the crowd for their support, but she collapsed with emotion and was taken to a hospital.

Family photos Family photos of Randy Sylvester Jr. and his sister Denim.

Those gathered could feel her sorrow.

“I prayed that the outcome would be happy, but this is something that is not forgivable,” said mourner Belinda Johnican.

Randy Jr. and Denim had been the subject of a high-profile, six-day search since they went missing on Father’s Day.

Corbett confirmed that the bodies of the two children had been burned.

Corbett said Randy Jr.’s body was stuffed in a wooden trunk, while Denim was stuffed into a suitcase. The area where the bodies were dumped was near a small pond. Video from Air 11 clearly showed charred ground where the bodies were recovered near the water’s edge.

A cause of death would have to be determined by the medical examiner, said Corbett.

Just hours before the gruesome discovery, police had begun draining a retention pond near the apartment complex where the children lived. The location where the bodies were found is about 7 miles to the north of that pond.

Quanell X, who had been talking to Sylvester two days prior to the discovery, was able to get the father to finally lead him to the bodies.

Before that, Sylvester kept pointing authorities to some ponds closer to the apartment complex where the kids lived.

An emotional Quanell X called Sylvester “cold-blooded” and said that the two days he was with the suspect left him disturbed. The community activist said that despite pleas to Sylvester to tell police where the bodies where, the kids’ father insisted that Quanell X see the bodies for himself.

Quanell X also described one of Sylvester’s Pasadena apartments as a “dog house” filled with porn. He said it was filthy and was used as a place for Sylvester to do drugs. Quanell X described the apartment as a sort of playpen that Sylvester kept separate from the one he lived in.

It was after that visit that, “I knew that brother wasn’t innocent,” Quanell X said.

http://www.khou.com/topstories/stories/khou080620_jj_missingkidsFriday.21acadc7.html

Emphasis added by H4K Editor