Grandmother, boyfriend charged in toddler’s death in court

The Galivants Ferry couple charged in the beating death of a 17-month-old toddler faced a county magistrate Saturday in Conway.

Horry County Police charged 37-year-old Julia Shawnette Gorman with homicide by child abuse, and charged her boyfriend, 30-year-old Robert Andrew Palmer, with child neglect Friday.

A county judge did not set Gorman’s bond Saturday because of the possible life sentence, a circuit court judge must set the bond in general sessions court.

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.

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 has 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 child, who is Gorman’s grandson, died Wednesday 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 Friday morning, then booked the couple into the J. Reuben Long Detention Center around noon.

County investigator David Weaver, the lead detective on the child abuse case, served the pair with their warrants Friday afternoon.

The warrants state 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 Monday night 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, 2008in 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 father placed the emergency call to Horry County dispatch Monday night from Virginia, according to the police report.

Gorman will remain behind bars until her bond is set later this month, Palmer remained jailed as of this posting.

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