A judge ordered a Round Lake Beach couple detained until trial after hearing about months of abuse authorities said they directed at the woman’s son that amounted to what Lake County State’s Attorney Eric Rinehart called “a slow-motion murder.”

Judge Michael Nerheim ordered Domnique Servant, 33, and Joey Ruffin, 38, held in the alleged first-degree murder of Servant’s 8-year-old son, Markell Pierce.

Pierce died Friday after being whipped with a belt and being forced to stand in a cold shower, authorites said. An autopsy performed Monday did not produce an initial cause of death, but the Lake County Coroner’s Office said Pierce was malnourished and had numerous bruises.

“We must do everything we can to make sure this type of slow-motion murder is not happening anywhere, and that it never happens,” Rinehart said after Monday’s detention hearing.

The judge called some details of the alleged crime “particularly heinous.”

Assistant State’s Attorney Jeff Facklam said Pierce and his 10-year-old sister faced routine beatings with a belt going back at least 22 months.

Ruffin, the prosecutor said, made video recordings of Pierce being beaten. One recording was made about an hour before the Friday afternoon 911 call that brought police and first responders to the couple’s home in the 1900 block of Cedar Lake Road.

In the final video, Pierce can be seen shirtless, with bruises showing, while Ruffin verbally abuses him, Facklam said. The couple had worn out two other belts beating their children, the prosecutor said.

The dead child’s sister told police that she and her brother were kept in their rooms, with surveillance cameras trained on them, and were forced to ask permission to use the bathroom. The sister has been hospitalized in Chicago, prosecutors said.

Pierce was often forced to hold an eight-pound weight over his head, sometimes for hours, Facklam said.

On the day of his death, Pierce appeared “sluggish,” so Ruffin made him take a cold shower, the prosecutor said. The child later collapsed, and Ruffin called 911.

Prosecutors said both children had been pulled from school, in part because Servant said, “she was tired of having DCFS called on them,” according to prosecutors. However, a spokesperson for the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services said Monday that the agency had not had previous contact.

Attempts to contact Round Lake Beach school officials were unsuccessful.

Servant’s sister, Shay Kelly, was among a small group family members who came to court for support.

“I never would have seen this in a million years,” Kelly said. She said she had last seen Pierce at Thanksgiving, but only briefly. The boy looked thin, and Kelly said she was told he had been having stomach issues.

She said she has never met Ruffin, even though Ruffin and Servant have been together four or five years and are parents of a 3-year-old.

“We need a lot of support,” Kelly said. “There are a lot of unanswered questions.”

“There should be one more 8-year-old child alive in this world today,” Rinehart said. “This horrific death was preventable.”

On Monday, a neighbor, Leylah Valencia, 16, was placing a stuffed animal on a memorial that sprang up at the child’s home.

She said she would sometimes talk to Pierce’s sister when the girl was walking the family’s dogs.

“It felt like she wanted to say something to us, but I think she was too scared to because if she did, we would have helped her and everything,” Valencia said.

A man who asked that he only be identified as a neighbor said he never saw the children playing outside.

“There’s a bunch of kids here, and I never really noticed them,” he said. “I will say that if any of the neighbors had any suspicion, we would have intervened.”

He said he was home when emergency personnel arrived on Friday and saw a police officer carrying Markell out.

“I got on my knees,” the neighbor said. “I started praying (and) got very emotional. I’ve just been sick to my stomach all weekend. I’m so sorry.

“It’s really hard to find out that something like that was going on next door,” he said. “I have two little boys … (so this) kind of hits me very, very deep.”

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/02/09/neglected-child-homicide-round-lake-beach/