Galivants Ferry toddler burial set, grandmother charged

The 17-month-old toddler, who police said died at the hands of his grandmother last month, will be laid to rest in Nevada Tuesday morning, according to the toddler’s family in Arizona.

The toddler’s father’s family lives in Arizona and the burial will take place Tuesday at 8 a.m. local time in Boulder City, Nevada at the Military National Cemetery.

Pathologists at the Medical University of South Carolina spent days following Richard Aydain Grimes’ death on July 16, working to gather evidence prosecutors plan to use against the baby’s maternal grandmother in a murder trial set to take place in Horry County.

Horry County Police charged the child’s maternal grandmother, 37-year-old Julia Shawnette Gorman with homicide by child abuse, and charged her boyfriend, 30-year-old Robert Andrew Palmer, with child neglect on July 18.

A county judge did not set Gorman’s bond at a hearing on July 19 because of the possible life sentence; a circuit court judge must set the bond in general sessions court.

No date has been set for Gorman’s bond hearing as of this posting.

The judge set Palmer’s bond at $100,000 and ordered him to have no contact with any of the victims in the case, even his own 5-year-old son.

Palmer posted the $100,000 bond following the hearing on July 19 and has remained free on bond since.

The judge ordered the Department of Social Services to conduct a home study and investigation into Palmer and his son before he’ll be able to have any contact with him.

Palmer told the judge he was unemployed and had been for the past three months.

Gorman and Palmer lived together at a home on Highway 129 in Galivants Ferry, according to court records.

The toddler died on July 16 at the Medical University of South Carolina of a head injury after being airlifted from a Conway hospital Monday night, according to Horry County coroner Robert Edge.

The baby is Gorman’s daughter’s child and was staying with Gorman and Palmer while the child’s parents were out of town, according to investigators.

Investigators took the couple to the M.L. Brown Building in Conway for questioning on July 18, only hours before investigators booked the couple into the J. Reuben Long Detention Center on the charges.

The arrest warrant states that Gorman inflicted the deadly injuries to her 17-month-old grandson, and that Palmer failed to report the incident and also failed to get medical attention for the child.

Police think the injuries happened sometime between July 11 and July 14 at the couple’s home on Highway 129 in the Galivants Ferry community, just north of Aynor.

Medics flew the child from the Conway Medical Center late on July 14, after Gorman and Palmer took the baby to the hospital, according to a county police report.

In a criminal record check on Gorman and Palmer, News13 found that the state Highway Patrol charged Gorman with failing to restrain a child in a vehicle and ticketed her for not wearing seatbelt in late January.

Gorman pleaded guilty to the charges on Feb. 08, 2008 in Conway, according to county records.

Palmer had several traffic offenses, but the county records on Palmer showed no prior criminal charges against him.

The baby’s mother is living in Arizona, and the child’s father, Richard Grimes, is living in Virginia, according to family members.

The toddler’s father, Richard Grimes, placed the emergency call from his home in Virginia to Horry County dispatch the night the child was taken to the Conway hospital, according to the police report.

You can count on News13 to continue to update this story as details become available.