Boy, 13, accused of stabbing grandmother to death in St. Petersburg

ST. PETERSBURG — A 13-year-old boy stabbed his grandmother to death in her home, police said, while another grandchild slept in a nearby room.

Detectives on Monday said they did not know what led Javarick Henderson to kill 56-year-old Gloria Davis. Investigators said he stabbed her multiple times. The boy attends Dunedin Highland Middle School, according to St. Petersburg police, and he has no history of disciplinary problems at school or trouble with law enforcement.

Javarick faces a charge of second-degree murder. Prosecutors from the Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney’s Office will decide whether to charge him as an adult or juvenile.

The boy was apparently staying with Davis in her home at 634 60th Ave. S, though investigators did not immediately explain whether he was simply sleeping over or lived there full time. Police were called to the house at about 3:40 a.m. Davis is the mother of Javarick’s father.

The other grandchild, a 12-year-old, shares the same father but has a different mother, authorities said. Detectives interviewed that boy Monday. No one else was home at the time, St. Petersburg police Chief Tony Holloway said.

Family members ducked under the crime scene tape Monday morning to watch as police collected evidence inside the sea-foam green, one-story home.

Felicia Kennedy, who said Davis was her cousin, wiped her eyes as she peered down the road. Davis carried mail for the U.S. Postal Service, Kennedy said, a job she held for almost 20 years.

“She was just beautiful inside and out,” said Kennedy, 47. “It’s a shock. It’s just shocking.”

Davis had two adult sons, according to another cousin, Andre Blunt. She raised them as a single parent, he said.

“They were her life,” Kennedy said.

Times senior news researcher Caryn Baird and staff writer Zachary T. Sampson contributed to this report.