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“We’re here to discuss the death of my nephew, my son D’Airess Fuller Jr. (DJ), and how he was failed,” Lowe said.
DJ was born in July 2018 to Telia Thomas and D’Airess Fuller, both of Abilene. A few months prior, Lowe had reconnected with her half-sister, Thomas, after years of little to no contact.
“I didn’t know my sister. I met her over Facebook. I remember seeing a girl that looked just like me. I asked about it and was told that she was my sister. So, I drove down to Taylor County to meet her,” said Lowe.
“What was your initial impression of her?” KTAB/KRBC asked.
“It was questionable. I saw some things that I didn’t like, but I didn’t want to ruin something before it started, you know? I was just now meeting her, and I definitely didn’t want her to think that I was passing judgment,” Lowe replied.
Lowe said she was raised to hold family in high regard, so she was happy to be finally building a relationship with Thomas. Just two months after DJ’s birth, Lowe received a phone call from Thomas and Child Protective Services (CPS). Thomas told Lowe that she was in legal trouble and needed someone to care for her three children, DJ and his 3 and 5-year-old sisters whom she now considers to be just like her own biological children. CPS informed Lowe that drugs had been detected in the children’s systems, asking if she would take them under her care for the time being.
“When I tell you they are some angels, and they were going through so much… I knew at that point, okay, God, I’m here to protect and that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to do whatever I need to do to get [Thomas] reunified with her children, get her better, get her stable and get them back to being a happy family,” Lowe shared.
By October 10th of 2018 Lowe, her husband, and their son had welcomed the three children in with open arms. Lowe said they agreed as a family that this was best for all of them. Almost immediately, they began to care for the kid’s every need, including trips to the doctor, which is how they discovered DJ had RSV, a respiratory virus that makes it difficult to breathe.
“I took DJ to his first doctor’s appointment on October 16th of 2018, and I remember hearing him breath, and I was like, something’s not right. He’s not supposed to sound like this. I told my sister and her words to me were ‘You haven’t been a mom in so long you forgot what a baby sounds like,'” Lowe recalled.
After multiple appointments, more was discovered about DJ’s medical issues, but it was one emergency medical trip that revealed yet another concerning affliction.
As Lowe was pulling up to her biological son’s school to pick him up, DJ stopped breathing, which had happened once before while he was at daycare. Lowe immediately called 911 and DJ was rushed in for emergency treatment.
It was discovered that DJ also suffered from an underdeveloped airway. The hospital’s treatment, at first, seeming unsuccessful as Lowe said it caused his airway to constrict further. She was told it was time to come and say her goodbyes to baby DJ.
“I went in there and we prayed, and I just sat there, and I just looked at my baby; I was like you didn’t bring him this far to let him go right now. He got a lot of fight in him. He’s already proven that,” Lowe recalled. “The next three hours were the longest hours of my life. I just sat and watched the heart rate drop and the blood pressure go down and the body temperature. I’m just praying the whole time like God no. Don’t do this. And DJ pulled through. My baby fought.”
Throughout these medical episodes, the Lowe family had completely turned their lives upside down, doing whatever was needed to ensure DJ had every chance to survive. She and her husband would take turns taking time off work to be at his bedside throughout his hospital stays. A feeding tube was installed in DJ to help him get nutrition as he had difficulty swallowing.
They moved from their home in Killeen to Manor to be closer to the hospital. She said the father, Fuller, was completely out of the picture at that time.
They even hired a 24-hour live-in nurse to assist with DJ’s medical needs. That nurse also helped all of them learn how to best take care of DJ.
“I traveled to Taylor County and stood before the judge and agreed to allow my sister to come and stay with me so she could learn to take care of him… She was with me when we discharged him from the hospital. I sat there and made her listen to everything they had to say. Because you’re going to learn. Your baby has showed you that he’s a fighter. Now it’s your job to protect,” Lowe said.
Lowe sat with her sister as the nurses held multiple meetings with them, informing on the extra care DJ would need.
“She was trained on everything. Was she receptive of it? No, she wasn’t. Because she felt like we were trying to be all in her business or trying to tell her how to be a mother. No one is saying you didn’t know how to be a mother, but now you have a baby that has extra needs,” Lowe explained.
During that time Lowe helped Thomas get a job with the city of Austin and a new car. With everything seeming going so well, Lowe shared it came as a shock when in September of 2019 she received a call from their nurse stating that Thomas had left the house and taken the three kids with her, leaving behind DJ’s feeding pump, formula, his feeding bags, and medication. All of which Lowe said had helped young DJ’s condition improve.
“When we got the feeding tube in him, he just started thriving… But she only grabbed what it was that she could get out of the house really quick and get on the highway,” Lowe said.
After calling her family members, CPS, and anyone she could think of to find out where the children were and get them back home, Lowe said she was told that the Judge in Thomas’ case had decided that Lowe was not giving her sister a fair chance to raise her children, and that Thomas had been given her parental rights back.
“That was the worst thing that could have ever happened… I had voiced my concerns long prior to this. She’s not ready,” Lowe said.
Though she reached out often and through many different channels, Lowe would not hear from her sister or any of the kids until November of 2019, when her sister reached out through another family member to arrange a video call with the kids.
“I saw then that [DJ] was looking little. I thought ‘okay, he’s one and a half almost a little too old to be looking that little but I’m not going to ruin it. I’m seeing him. I’ve actually laid eyes on him,” Lowe said.
A few more texts were exchanged between Thomas and Lowe after that video call. Then, radio silence until that day in May 2020 when Lowe received yet another call, this time from authorities in Taylor County; a call she never wanted to receive.
“I remember the lady saying, ‘Hi is this LaMeka’? I saw Abilene come across my caller ID and I’m just like okay. I immediately go to grab the little medical book because it’s one of two things: he could be sick, maybe they need to know if something had gone wrong. This book had over 3,500 pages in it. I still had his care plan,” Lowe recalled. “She says ‘has anybody called you?’ and I’m like, no I haven’t heard from anybody. Are the kids, okay? She called my name again and I was like okay you’re scaring me… Then she says ‘I don’t know how to tell you this, but DJ passed away. I dropped the phone and picked it right back up… I walked out to the end of the driveway and said ‘I’m sorry it was loud, and I just want to make sure I heard what you said. Can you repeat that?’ And she says, ‘I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry’. I just screamed. I didn’t even let her get the word out of her mouth again. I just screamed at the top of my lungs.”
After telling her family what had happened, Lowe began reaching out to Taylor County and Abilene services to arrange the safe transport of her nieces up to her home. 24-hours later the girls were back in her arms, though she said it was clear they weren’t the same.
“One of the girls, I called her my ray of sunshine. Ray looked at me and she says ‘You were supposed to protect me’. I had no answer. I had no come back. All I could say was ‘I’m here now, I’m here now.’ And ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” Lowe shared. For the next couple of nights, I had to sleep with them, and I would sit there and hold her, and I would hear her whimper in her sleep. But to hear a baby tell you those words that… that hurts.”
Not long after that day, Lowe and her family began the process of legally adopting her nieces and the baby boy Thomas had given birth to after DJ’s death. Lowe and her family went through the adoption process again when they found out that Thomas and Fuller had given birth to a fifth child, another baby boy.
Lowe now has legal parental rights over both boys and both girls. Though she said the adoption process was long and drawn out, it’s a trial they would go through all over again if it meant keeping those babies safe. Lowe added that DJ’s death and the legal process had taken their toll on the children, remarking on signs she’d seen in one of the girls.
“She’s ten now, you have ruined her for the rest of her life. Now has she repaired? Yeah, She’s a straight A student, smart, beautiful. Because I’m teaching them that it’s okay. How you start out is not how it has to end. We got this,” Lowe assured.
In March of 2024, the children’s biological mother, Telia Thomas, was sentenced to life in prison in connection to DJ’s death. The father, D’Airess Fuller received a 20-year prison sentence on Thursday, April 3, 2025, but Lowe said she feels 20 years is not nearly enough.
“The fight isn’t over. You have robbed these children, and you continue to because you give this man 20 years. I fear in 20 years he is going to come looking for my kids… His family will be able to throw him a good old welcome home party. We get to go to a grave. Every holiday, every birthday,” Lowe expressed.
She and her family have spent the past five years reaching out to legal services, hoping to get Fuller’s sentence extended. But without any legal recourse, Lowe said she will continue to fight by doing all she can to make sure his sentence is served.
“I’m struggling and accepting that. I’m going to struggle my whole life accepting it. But I promise you, every time I get a notification that he’s going up to ask for parole, I’m going to be there. I’m going to tell him where he shouldn’t. If all they’re going to give you is 20 years, If I can help it, you’re going to do those 20 years, day for day,” Lowe said.
Lowe went on to say that part of her fight includes sharing their story, which is why she reached out to KTAB/KRBC. Not only speaking to tell her family’s side of the story, but to call out what she sees as cracks in the childcare legal system in hopes of sparking change so that others might not experience the pain her family has been through.
“I’m angry, but I know I have to be levelheaded because my walk now, my story now is for my son [DJ], for my children. It is to bring awareness to that. But if I can stop this from happening to any other child, I will,” Lowe explained. “I shouldn’t have to go to [DJ’s] memorial cabinet when I want to talk to him or hold his blanket when I want to hold him. This should not be happening… I just want to make sure this doesn’t happen to another baby, another child and nobody else has to go through the pain we’re going through because this hurts. This is a different kind of hurt.”
When asked how she feels towards her sister, Thomas, Lowe said that she was hopeful to have a positive relationship, but the things she has been through have changed her outlook towards her sister forever.
“I lost my sister, and I lost my son. You know, my sister was young. She’s gone for the rest of her life because she was in love with somebody who clearly didn’t love her back the way she was supposed to,” said Lowe.
She added that a part of her frustration is directed at the services that took DJ and his siblings away and gave them back to Thomas.
“CPS is Child Protective Services… Since you took him from me, you say I wasn’t giving [Thomas] a chance. Now it’s your job. you failed. You did not protect my baby,” Lowe said. “When I saw his autopsy, all you could see was bones… [Thomas] never replaced [DJ’s] feeding tube. As he grows, it has to be replaced. My baby died with the same one I had placed in him… I did everything I was supposed to. I called them and I told them she wasn’t ready. I pleaded with them, and it went ignored. They didn’t listen to me.”
Lowe learned that DJ had been cremated after death, and said his ashes were stored in a corner closet in the very same home he died in. Another portion of the ashes were apparently placed at a burial plot in an Abilene cemetery. Lowe has since moved the urn from the Abilene home to a personally built memorial wall in her own home in Manor.
She said now all she can do is continue to fight and share their story as she and her husband work to heal the wounds of their adopted children, hoping to have answers for them when they grow up and ask her what happened to their brother all those years ago.
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