A man charged with murdering Sophia Mason — the 8-year-old Hayward girl whose gruesome death nearly four years ago highlighted numerous failings in Alameda County’s child safety net — accepted a plea deal earlier this month and was released from jail earlier this month after accepting a plea deal.
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Dhante Jackson was released from Merced County jail on Oct. 6 after pleading guilty to an accessory charge in Sophia’s death, his attorney and the Merced County District Attorney’s Office confirmed this week. His release was a result of having spent nearly three years in jail, which was nearly two years longer than the maximum sentence to which he pleaded guilty, according to his attorney.
The end of his case leaves Sophia’s mother, Samantha Johnson, as the lone person still facing murder and child abuse charges in the girl’s death.
On Tuesday, Jackson’s attorney criticized Merced County prosecutors and Merced’s police force for their investigation and their alleged reliance on Johnson’s statements, suggesting “they just took her word for it.”
The attorney, Todd Melnik, claimed to have undertaken a “painstaking” investigation to prove Jackson’s innocence on the murder charge, which included pulling license plate reader data and Bay Area toll records, while also putting Jackson through a polygraph test.
“Justice was clearly done, but it was justice delayed,” said Melnik, whose work to exonerate a murder suspect in a separate case was highlighted in the 2017 Netflix documentary “Long Shot.” “Dhante never should have been arrested.”
Emerald Johnson, aunt of Sophia Mason, an 8-year-old girl from Hayward whose mother and mother’s boyfriend stand accused of murdering her, poses for a portrait with a photo of Mason, her drawings and school work at Johnson’s home in Hayward, Calif., on Tuesday, June 7, 2022. (Dai Sugano/Bay Area News Group)
In March 2022, Sophia’s body was found decomposing in the bathtub of a Merced house after her relatives in Hayward — where she had spent much of her life — grew concerned about her well-being. The girl had been dead for at least a month before anyone found her corpse, and she appeared to be extremely malnourished at the time of her death, which was ruled a homicide by the Merced County coroner’s office.
Johnson, Sophia’s mother, previously told authorities that Sophia had been made to stay in a metal shed in their backyard as punishment, police records show. She also admitted to burning Sophia’s leg with a hot spoon as a form of discipline and choking her on at least one occasion, the records show.
Johnson also previously told investigators that she ultimately removed Sophia from the shed, because the girl had “feces on her” and needed to take a shower, according to records. At one point, it sounded like the girl fell in the bathroom, though Johnson didn’t investigate the “thud” because Jackson said the girl wanted to be left alone, according to a police report.
The next day, Johnson assumed Sophia ran away, because the back sliding door was open, the mother told investigators. She did not ask authorities for help looking for her, according to a police report.
Subsequent investigations by the Bay Area News Group discovered deep deficiencies in the response by the Alameda County Department of Children and Family Services to repeated concerns about Sophia’s well-being during the last year and a half of her life. County social workers appeared to repeatedly ignore evidence of the danger Sophia was in under her mother’s care, and did not elevate allegations of abuse to law enforcement in a timely fashion, the investigations found. Alameda County had jurisdiction over the case because Sophia lived the majority of her life in Hayward.
The revelations underscored concerns about systemic issues within Alameda County’s child welfare agency for how quickly its employees responded to reports of children being abused or neglected. Those concerns remain: just last month, California’s State Auditor, Grant Parks, issued a fresh report claiming the county agency failed to meet state deadlines to investigate alleged child abuse and provide physical and mental health care.
In May 2023, the Alameda County Board of Supervisors also commissioned their own inquiry into the handling of Sophia’s case, though the outcome of that investigation remains unclear nearly two and a half years later. The board has yet to announce any formal findings from the inquiry.
Sophia’s grandmother filed a lawsuit against the county and multiple social workers involved in Sophia’s case, alleging that they broke more than a dozen state child welfare regulations during the last 14 months of Sophia’s life and falsified records to cover up their failures.
Emerald Johnson, aunt of Sophia Mason, an 8-year-old girl from Hayward whose mother and mother’s boyfriend stand accused of murdering her, poses for a portrait at Johnson’s home in Hayward, Calif., on Tuesday, June 7, 2022. (Dai Sugano/Bay Area News Group)
In an interview with this news organization Tuesday, Sophia’s aunt criticized the outcome of Jackson’s case, saying she was “disappointed and disgusted,” while likening the result to “a slap in the face.”
The aunt, Emerald Johnson, phoned in multiple reports to Alameda County’s child welfare agency raising alarm over Sophia’s wellbeing under Jackson and Samantha Johnson’s care while the girl was still alive. Jackson’s plea deal this month reopened old wounds about how Sophia’s case was handled.
“I feel like she was failed while she was alive, and now she’s being failed again in her death,” Emerald Johnson said.
Merced police quickly named Jackson as a suspect — along with Samantha Johnson, his girlfriend — after discovering Sophia’s body inside a home where the couple had been living.
Though authorities quickly arrested Samantha Johnson, a manhunt ensued for Jackson that stretched from the Bay Area and the San Joaquin Valley to Southern California. His arrest in September 2022 came after authorities authored more than 20 search warrants — often for cell phone information — and spent hundreds of hours sifting through forensic data.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta personally announced Jackson’s capture, saying at a press conference that the case left him “damn angry” that a girl had been subjected to so much abuse.
“We shouldn’t be here – little Sophia should still be alive today,” Bonta said. “She should be playing. She should be learning. She should be growing up. She should be pursuing and chasing her dreams.
“Those accused of her murder must pay a steep price for their abhorrent crimes,” he added.
The criminal case against the couple has dragged on for years, as Jackson cycled through multiple attorneys and as questions were raised over Samantha Johnson’s mental wellbeing. Neither have faced a preliminary hearing, during which a judge determines whether enough evidence exists to send the case to trial.
Jakob Rodgers is a senior breaking news reporter. Call, text or send him an encrypted message via Signal at 510-390-2351, or email him at [email protected].
