Partly Cloudy / 37° FBroken family breaks its silence
- Steven, Lisa and Leilani, 8, Eliason are pictured in the backyard of their Niles home near the playhouse Steven built with his son, Dakotah. (Daily Star photo/JESSICA SIEFF)
By JESSICA SIEFF
Niles Daily Star
Dakotah Eliason likes to sing.
According to his father, Steven, Dakotah would often sit at his computer and sing while playing with audio playlists.
“He’s got a pretty good voice,” Steven said. In custody at the Berrien County Juvenile Center, Dakotah now is able to have lyrics to songs printed out for him.
“And he can sit in his room and sing,” Steven said.
He is also a pretty good artist, his father added as he walked back from the playhouse in the backyard of his Niles home, a playhouse Dakotah helped him build.
These are things about Steven’s son a lot of people may not know. And there is more, his father said, to the 14-year-old boy than the tragic and shocking crime that he is now known for.
Friday morning, Berrien County Prosecutor Art Cotter and defense attorney Lanny Fisher are scheduled to meet with Berrien County Trial Court Judge Scott Schofield for a case conference regarding Dakotah, who is facing open murder charges in the death of his grandfather, Jesse Miles, on March 7.
Since that time, focus has been put on the events of that night, what led Dakota, described as a “loving,” “timid” boy, to allegedly pick up the loaded handgun hanging in his grandparents’ kitchen and aim it at his grandfather, pulling the trigger and issuing the solitary bullet that would end Miles’ life.
What seems to remain is the painful question of “why?” Why did Dakotah do what he did that night?
Steven and his wife aren’t sure if they’ll ever know.
In an exclusive interview, Steven and his wife talk about what their lives have been like since the death of Miles and Dakotah’s arrest.
What they want people to know is there had been a succession of struggles in Dakotah’s life – and an onslaught of tragedy shortly before his arrest.
“He is such a loving boy,” Lisa said.
Just 12 months old when his father and his biological mother split, Steven said his son has always only known the unfortunate circumstances to come with that split – custody disputes, a difference between the two parenting styles and growing up with two separate families.
“It took a couple of days for him to adjust when he’d come back home” from visits with his mother, Steven said.
He stresses that he had a very loving home, attributed to a “Southern upbringing” by Miles which adds to the confusion.
“It doesn’t matter which one of our family members came over,” Steven said. “(Dakotah) would hug them and tell them goodbye and that he loved them.
“He was a good big brother, wasn’t he?” Steven asked his daughter, 8-year-old Leilani.
“Yes,” she said.
“Even though he picked on you a little bit,” he joked.
“That’s what brothers and sisters do,” Leilani says, matter of factly.
“It’s one of the things that made it so hard for everybody I think,” he said. “It’s what a loving child he’d always been growing up his whole life around our family and then to go from zero to 100 miles per hour in the matter of a second.”
In that second, Steven lost his son and his father all at once.
It was arguably the worst but also the latest in a string of hardships for the family.
Steven said he’d noticed a change in his son after the last custody dispute between he and Dakotah’s biological mother when he was about 12 years old.
The broken home seemed to have taken its toll.
Then, in July 2009, Lisa’s niece, who she said had a good relationship with Dakotah, as he had with all of his cousins, died tragically in a car accident.
The following August, the dog he’d loved and had since he was a child also died.
“He cried for two weeks,” Steven said.
In September, Steven, who’d worked in the recreational vehicle industry, lost his job. He began drawing unemployment and decided to go back to school. Lisa began looking for work.
But with the economy in the shape it had been in, finances were too tight and around the end of the year, “we started talking about filing bankruptcy on the house,” Steven said.
By January, Steven said he explained to the children they would be preparing to move into his mother and Miles’ home in an effort to save some money and get back on their feet.
“I’ve always been very open with Dakotah,” Steven said. “I’ve never kept anything from him, there’s no reason to.”
But for Dakotah it also meant he’d lose the retreat he visited so often.
Then in February, another blow. Dakotah’s friend, who Steven said he was “good friends” with and talked to every day, Alex Wentz, died tragically.
Steven said he and Lisa asked his son, who took the death hard, if he wanted to see a counselor or professional to talk about the loss. He declined and he didn’t attend the funeral.
Shortly before the shooting, Lisa said she found out Dakotah had also had a girlfriend who had just broken up with him.
“We’ve lost a lot of people you know,” Lisa said. “And death is really hard for Dakotah.”
“He’s seen a lot of close people to the family pass for a young kid,” Steven said.
Which only adds to the mystery behind his role in Miles’ death.
Going back to that night, many details have been revealed in audio and video recordings.
Steven reiterates his belief that his son did not understand his miranda rights as they were read to him prior to and after his arrest.
He tries not to bring the subject up too much in his biweekly visits with Dakotah at the Berrien County Juvenile Center, where he has moved into a Level 3 status, which is allows the opportunity for sibling visits as well. Steven said the staff have commented Dakotah is very “mild mannered,” helpful and polite.
“That’s one of the things that is so disheartening to me, is how they’ve tried to run him through,” Steven said. “Like he’s some sort of monster.”
After waking to the news that his son was in police custody and his father was in critical condition, Steven said after he left his home with police a Michigan State trooper arrived at his home, informed Lisa he wanted to search the residence and told her if she refused, he’d come back with a search warrant and do a more thorough search.
They photographed his son’s room, took photos of his daughter’s shoes and even attempted to take Steven’s computer.
When he was reunited with his son that night, Steven said he noticed one thing specifically about Dakotah. His eyes were extremely dilated – and when he was finally able to see him again, one week later, they were still in the same condition. He said his son’s eyes have been dilated quite a bit since.
No neurological evaluation of Dakotah has been ordered or performed.
A forensic psychological evaluation came back from the state, and Steven said the doctor believed Dakotah criminally liable for the shooting, adding a possibility that his son was “making up” some of his symptoms.
The evaluation revealed Dakotah said he’d been hearing voices for close to two years, “but he was too afraid to tell us,” his father said.
Was he really hearing voices, and did such a state play a role in what transpired in the early morning hours of March 7?
Steven tenses when he describes a term used by Berrien County Prosecutor Art Cotter during a victim’s impact meeting March 15.
“I’ll never forget that,” he said. “He referred to my son as being a ‘sociopath.’”
