Inset left: Raymona Ford (Leon County Sheriff’s Office). Right: O’Rhyan Moore (GoFundMe). Background: The apartment complex where the mother and child resided in Tallahassee, Florida (Google Maps).
A Florida mother is behind bars after a toddler’s drowning death was found to be the result of “foul play,” Sunshine State police say.
Raymona Ford, aged 24, is charged with one count of willful and premeditated murder and one count of cruelty toward a child involving aggravated battery, as per records from the Leon County Sheriff’s Office.
The arrest took place on Wednesday following a months-long probe into the tragic death of a 2-year-old, as mentioned in a press release by the Tallahassee Police Department.
On May 9, authorities received a call about a toddler who had allegedly drowned in a bathtub at the Magnolia Terrace Apartments in the Myers Park area, according to police reports.
First-responders urgently applied life-saving measures to the young child before he was transported to a nearby hospital, where his condition was classified as critical, based on the police department’s statement.
But four days later, he succumbed to his injuries.
“After an exhaustive and thorough investigation, supported by the Medical Examiner’s Office findings, investigators concluded that Ford had struck the child several times, which led to him experiencing seizures and eventually drowning when left unsupervised in the bathtub,” the police alleged.
While police did not divulge the relationship between the victim and the defendant in the press release, Ford was identified as the child’s mother in an affidavit of probable cause obtained by Law&Crime.
On the day of the incident, Ford allegedly told responding officers she prepared meals for her three children – when the 2-year-old got “his food all over him and needed to be bathed,” according to the affidavit.
The defendant went on to explain a routine bath time at the residence – using the “upper shower faucet” to run water into the tub because the bottom faucet “was not functioning properly,” police claim. Days later, Ford would conduct a “video recorded walk-through of the incident” by filling up the tub in this fashion and letting the water drain – along with a doll to represent her child during the incident.
After filling the tub with water, the defendant allegedly said she left her boy alone for somewhere between 1-2 minutes, or at most 3-5 minutes while she checked on one of her other children.
Ultimately, it was not the mechanics of the tub that caught law enforcement’s attention. Rather, police seized on the way Ford allegedly described how her son was found drowned on the day in question.
“Ford claimed to have found O’Rhyan Moore on his back with his feet towards the bathtub faucet,” the affidavit reads. “She said his face was out of the water and the water level was approximately 2 inches…She stated that O’Rhyan Moore appeared to be floating or halfway floating in the tub and gave the example of someone floating in a pool. This would indicate air being in O’Rhyan Moore’s lungs when she stated she discovered him and not consistent with drowning.”
An ensuing autopsy found the child suffered “acute trauma to the head and neck, which caused probable seizures and resulted in complications from water submerging,” police said.
Finally, police learned Ford had allowed the same boy to suffer “a previous drowning incident” once before in 2023. This occurred when the boy was 11 months old, according to the affidavit.
In August, when pressed to account for the boy’s pre-drowning injuries, the defendant allegedly confessed to striking her child “in the head at least three times in anger” because of “his behavior and making a mess of himself and the residence,” police claim.
Law enforcement also alleged that Ford asked the child’s father to watch him around the time of the incident so she “could celebrate her birthday” – but the boy’s father refused. Police said this lent credence to claims by the child’s grandmother that “injury appeared to befall” him because Ford was “upset with the child’s father.”
A woman identified as “Raymona Ford” from Tallahassee is listed as the organizer of a defunct GoFundMe for a child with the same name as the deceased boy identified in the affidavit.
“Orion is an amazing constellation; it is viewed as a hunter and a king,” the GoFundMe reads. “My son’s name was O’Rhyan. O’Rhyan was a very affectionate baby; he loved his penguin plushie, cuddling, and watching cartoons. He was a very happy child. Due to legal limitations, I can’t go in depth disclosing information about this tragic incident, but nothing can prepare you for that as a parent.”
The fundraiser, which was started on May 14, but is no longer active, says the boy died from “irreversible” and “profound brain damage.”
“I held his hand and held out hope through each test,” Ford wrote. ‘I tried to encourage my baby; if I could fight for him, I would have.”
On Thursday, Ford appeared in court and was denied bond. She is currently being detained in the Leon County Detention Center.
