Some stories shake you to your core. Ten-year-old Dakota Levi Stevens died tragically just a month after entering his foster home. His foster mother, 48-year-old Jennifer Lee Wilson, now faces reckless homicide charges in Berrien County, Michigan.
Reports state that after Dakota misbehaved at home, Wilson sat on him, pressing her 340-pound frame onto the 90-pound boy for about five minutes while on the phone with his caseworker. Despite his screams, she reportedly assumed he was faking. When she rolled him over, his eyelids were pale. A child called 911, but Dakota was unresponsive and later died on April 25, 2024.
An autopsy revealed catastrophic internal injuries—organ damage, soft tissue trauma, and hemorrhaging. The cause of death was mechanical asphyxia: he was crushed. Just 30 minutes earlier, Dakota had run to a neighbor, begging to be adopted, saying his parents had hit him.
Wilson pleaded guilty to reckless homicide in October. In January 2025, she was sentenced to six years in prison, one year suspended. Other foster children in her care were removed after the tragedy. Dakota was remembered as a boy who “loved the outdoors” and always “marched to the beat of his own drum.”