Terrifying moment boy, 4, was taken from his bed by stranger as he slept beside his twin – and was never seen again
Footage shows the man suspecting of abducting and killing Cash, believed to be 22-year-old Darriynn Brown, hovering over the crib in a hoodie and sweatpants with a backpack on in Dallas, Texas.
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The heinous moment four-year-old Cash was allegedly abducted by Brown
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Surveillance footage in the twins' bedroom caught Brown returning just four hours later
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Cash Gernon was taken from the bed as he was sleeping
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Darriynn Brown has been deemed competent to stand trial, a judge declared
His twin brother, Carter, was laying sound asleep
next
to him.
The man - who is believed to be Brown - continues to hover and appears to hesitate for a couple of seconds before reaching down to grab little Cash.
He then picks him up by under his underarms and carries him out of the bedroom.
The harrowing case is now finally set to come to trial this year.
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And one lawyer told The Sun it is going strain the American legal system, with swirling questions around mental health and competency.
Brown allegedly
The same day, Cash was tragically found dead around eight blocks away from the house by a jogger.
Cash passed away from multiple stab wounds, with cops previously saying his wounds appeared to have been inflicted by an "edged weapon".
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Most read in The US Sun
Exclusive
Exclusive
Brown was identified following the release of
the CCTV footage
of a man snatching the four-year-old in the middle of the night.
He is charged with capital murder in the heinous killing and has finally been deemed competent to stand trial, a judge declared four years after the incident.
Cash's blood was found on Brown's clothes, according to the murder affidavit.
Surveillance installed in the six-bedroom
Florida
Parkway home also shows that, after Cash was snatched from his bed, the culprit returned for his twin brother, Carter.
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The second clip appears to show Brown in the bedroom at around 7am, when it's light outside.
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He is captured on camera, like a couple of hours earlier, hovering over the boy who is asleep, but leaves him be after he appears to be scared off by something.
The motive for the alleged abduction of Cash by Brown is unclear.
Now Brown has undergone treatment through an "outpatient competency restoration program" and is now deemed capable of understanding the charges against him, as well as able to participate in his own defence.
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Brown was evaluated by two doctors in 2022 and found unable to understand
court
proceedings and help with his own defence, according to
court
records.
But in January a doctor said in a report that Brown is competent, with a judge ordering that criminal proceedings against him can continue.
The 22-year-old's lawyer Heath Harris has previously said he has mental illnesses, including schizophrenia, and was hearing voices in the moment he is accused of taking Cash from his bed.
Former prosecutor and defence attorney Dr. Robert Sanders told The Sun how the case could lead to a potential defence of insanity.
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He said: "He might be clearly incompetent to understand the wrongfulness of the action he did at that time, and that could lead to a not guilty by reasonable insanity or guilty by insanity and a lockup at a certain point in time.
"The way they usually do this is they treat you and determine when you are reasonably competent to stand trial.
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Cash passed away from multiple stab wounds
Credit: GoFundMe
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Cash Gernon was only four
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The suspect was reportedly seen outside the home the boy was taken from weeks before his death
"They've done all of that, and now he's been determined to be reasonably competent to stand trial, but the defence is still allowed to show that at the time of the offence, he could not understand the wrongfulness of his actions.
"That doesn't mean he is not competent now - but at the time he did it, he may not have understood the wrong of his based on some mental disease or defect."
Dr Sanders also explained how the tragic case could even test the limits of the legal system's ability to balance justice as well as mental
health
.
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He added: " The issues in society are how do we view mental health? And is mental health a mitigation and extenuation?
" So mitigation lessens the impact not of the depth, but of the results of the individual's actions.
"And the extenuation is, 'what is the rationale for the irrational action of murdering a child?'
Chilling moment creep tries to drag teen girl away in kidnap bid at station
"So the jury, the judge, whoever is the trier of the fact, will get to balance those things if in fact they get to a point where they find he's guilty of the
crime
or not guilty by insanity based on the defence's application at the time that the insanity is an affirmative defence, which means you have to tell the
court
front that's what you're going to do.
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"And once his defence counsel has an opportunity to look at all the evidence, which he hadn't seen, at some point in time he'll be able to say, 'I'm going to assert the affirmative defence of not guilty by insanity' because he wasn't able to contemplate the wrongness of his actions when he took them or not.
"The likelihood is that since he was confined and not able to be tried immediately after this, it seems very likely that that defence is going to come up."
Brown also faces charges of burglary and kidnapping in connection with the four-year-old's heinous abduction, alongside additional burglary and injury to an elderly person charges from another incident, according to
court
and jail records.
Brown was also reportedly seen in footage lurking outside the home about 10 weeks before Cash was abducted.
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The male who is believed to be Brown is seen
next
to the neighbor's shared fence before he peers into Sherrod's backyard, in the clip published by the
The suspect
, wearing black jeans and a grey tank top, even quickly opens the back gate before promptly leaving the premises.
He is also accused of walking into a home in Dallas in February 2021 - three months before the murder of Cash - and grabbing a young child.
Cops said he broke in and searched the house before punching the homeowner after a confrontation, according to an affidavit.
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The homeowner didn't want to press charges at the time and told cops that Brown had apologised.
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A jogger found the little boy's body in the road
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