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‘I Want Him Gone’: Mom Allegedly Compared Slain 5-Year-Old Son To Serial Killer
“It’s so sad but I have no connection with this child,” Danielle Dauphinais allegedly told a friend in June through Snapchat.
A New Hampshire mom accused of murdering her 5-year-old son, once allegedly told a friend she wanted the boy “gone” and compared him to serial killers Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer.
Attorney General John M. Formella announced earlier this week that 35-year-old Danielle Dauphinais had been indicted on multiple charges in connection with the murder of her son, 5-year-old Elijah Lewis.
Dauphinais, who was indicted by a Hillsborough County Grand Jury on April 15, is now facing charges of second-degree murder for causing Lewis’ death “recklessly with extreme indifference to the value of human life” and three counts of tampering with witnesses.
Lewis’ remains were found in October in a wooded area near the Ames Nowell State Park after “credible information” led investigators to the “grave,” according to a press conference held last year.
An autopsy would later determine that Lewis died of violence, neglect, acute fentanyl intoxication, malnourishment and pressure ulcers—also known as bed sores, according to the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office.
Months before the discovery of the young boy’s remains, Dauphinais had allegedly complained to a high school friend in June about the 5-year-old.
“I call him the next Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer,” Dauphinais allegedly said during a Snapchat message with friend Erika Wolfe about the 5-year-old, according to The Boston Globe. “It’s so sad but I have no connection with this child.”
Wolfe and Dauphinais had been high school friends in New Hampshire. Although they hadn’t talked in years, Wolfe told the news outlet the conversation began after Dauphinais commented on a Snapchat post Wolfe had written about challenges she was having with her own teenage son.
Dauphinais allegedly described her 5-year-old son Elijah—who she said had been living with her since May of 2020—as being difficult to control, saying the child urinated on his clothing and beds and played in his own waste.
“I have to keep him in his room,” she wrote. “I can’t trust him at all.”
She also mentioned that the New Hampshire Division for Children, Youth and Families was involved but said the agency wasn’t able to help without the permission of Lewis’ father, Timothy Lewis, who had once had sole custody of the boy.
According to the conversation, Dauphinais said before Lewis came to live with her, she hadn’t seen her son since he was one-year-old.
“He’s been getting worse and worse,” she wrote. “I want him gone. I can’t handle it anymore.”
She described the situation as an “(expletive) nightmare that I can’t wake up from.”
Wolfe said at the time she dismissed her friend’s comments, believing they were likely just frustrated rants.
“In my mind, I’m thinking DCYF is probably checking in,” she told The Globe. “I thought, ‘Oh, you’re having a rough time, and probably not the best comment choices, and we all have our days.”
She told the newspaper she forgot about the conversation until the search to find Lewis ramped up in October.
“I remembered those messages,” she said. “And I was like, ‘Oh, no.’”
When approached by The Boston Globe about the messages in November, Dauphinais’ attorney Jayne Rancourt declined to comment.
“I have no information that these text messages are from my client,” she said. “Unless I had documentation verifying from a phone company their authenticity, until that happens, I would contest their validity.”
Lewis was officially reported missing on October 14. While authorities initially believed he hadn't been seen for six months before he was reported missing, Senior Assistant Attorney General Susan G. Morrell told Oxygen.com last year that investigators had “narrowed the time frame as the investigation progressed” to about 30 days before the missing persons report.
