Investigators believe a 23-year-old mother stabbed her son to death and then set a fire inside their Peachtree Corners apartment, according to Gwinnett County police.
Azaria Shante Burton was arrested late Friday, the day after her 5-year-old son, Jayveon Pruitt, died from his injuries. Burton was charged with murder, arson, aggravated assault, child cruelty, tampering with evidence and possession of a knife during the commission of a felony, jail records show. She was being held without bond Tuesday at the Gwinnett jail.
Burton’s arrest warrants state that she stabbed the boy between 5 a.m. and 7 a.m. and then set the fire. The boy’s grandmother said she had talked to him the previous night.
Pruitt routinely had a smile on his face and had said he “had the best mom ever,” his family told Channel 2 Action News.
“When I talked to him, he was always happy,” said Chasity Brown, Pruitt’s paternal grandmother. “This tore my family up.”
Credit: John Spink
Credit: John Spink
Brown said she spoke to her grandson Wednesday night while he carved pumpkins with his mother. Pruitt’s birthday would have been in November and Brown said she was looking forward to spending it with him in their home state of Mississippi.
“He was just telling me that his birthday was going to be with me,” she said. “He was just so precious. He loved his mom. He loved his dad.”
On Thursday morning, 911 callers reported a possible fire at The Vine apartments where Burton lived with her son. Firefighters responded to the complex on Springs Lane shortly before 8 a.m. and didn’t see flames, but they heard alarms from a first-floor unit and entered it, a Gwinnett police spokeswoman said.
That’s when they made a gruesome discovery: a young boy stabbed multiple times, police said.
The child was taken to a Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta hospital but did not survive.
Firefighters extinguished flames in two bedrooms of the apartment, according to Gwinnett fire Lt. Andy Lane. He declined to say where the boy was located. The child was the only person inside at the time.
Arson investigators are working with officers to determine the cause of the fire, Lane said.
Around 9:15 a.m., officers located a woman who appeared to be hiding behind a building at the apartment complex, according to Gwinnett police spokesperson Cpl. Michele Pihera. She was wet and not wearing shoes, but had on one sock, Pihera said.
The woman, later identified as Burton, was interviewed and arrested.
No possible motive was released for the killing. Gwinnett court records showed the apartment complex was in the process of evicting Burton.
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