MIAMI _ Beverly Morgan didn't know Natasha Bolton well. Over a decade ago, Bolton was a friendly customer who often went into Morgan's small Liberty City grocery store.
But Bolton also had a crushing drug addiction. When she gave birth to a baby, Bolton surprisingly asked Morgan to care for him. Morgan and her husband agreed. When Bolton couldn't stay clean and off the streets, they wound up adopting the boy named Martinez.
Another tragedy, this time violent, brought a second Bolton son to the Morgans' home.
The couple agreed to take in her second son, Derrick Barrett Jr., in July 2016 after the boy's father shot and killed Bolton, 28, inside a Brownsville home, then turned the gun on himself. The shooting happened in front of the boy _ then only 3 years old _ who was later found wandering the streets.
Late last week, a Miami jury convicted the elder Derrick Barrett, 49, who survived the gunshot to the head. He was immediately sentenced to life in prison on a charge of second-degree murder with a weapon.
"It was great to see that, because no one deserves to go that way," said Morgan, 46, who was in the Miami-Dade courtroom for the verdict. "She wasn't a bad person. She just ended up with the wrong crowd."
In the coming weeks, Morgan and her husband will seek to officially adopt the younger Derrick, who is now 7. Barrett, from jail, had been contesting the adoption, even as the Morgans had been caring for the boy since the shooting.
The Morgans, with Bolton's two sons, no longer live in Miami. Instead, they reside in Ruskin, a small town outside Tampa, where she cares for the boys full time. Her husband, Kendall Morgan, 49, works for the Coca-Cola company.
It's a far different environment than Miami, where she first met Bolton.
Bolton, who hailed from Liberty City, had a troubled upbringing. She also got into a serious car accident that injured her leg and killed her brother, neighbors said.
"I remember Tasha being a chipper person. Every time you saw her, she was walking with a smile," said neighbor Patricia Anderson, who knew Bolton after she moved to Brownsville.
State records show that Bolton's life was marred by arrest after arrest for prostitution and drugs. Martinez went to live with the Morgans just three days after he was born in 2006. It was only supposed to be for a short spell.
But when Bolton couldn't stay off drugs, the Morgans _ who had their own son _ offered to adopt him. "I didn't want to see him go into the system," Morgan said.
Martinez still got to see his biological mother from time to time over the years. Today, Martinez is 13 years old and a "fun all-around kid," Morgan says.
The father of the youngest boy is Barrett, a 10-time convicted felon. He also spent 12 years in prison for a murder in the late 1980s.
The couple's relationship was tumultuous. On the afternoon of July 21, 2016, the day of the murder, neighbors saw Barrett beating Bolton, the toddler at their side, at a neighborhood park.
"He had her by the hair. I walked up to her and said, 'Let her go!" Anderson recalled "He told me to mind my own f-ing business. When I said it to him again, he let her go. He stopped hitting her."
At trial, Miami-Dade prosecutors told jurors that the two went home and Barrett immediately shot Bolton. Investigators believe he ushered the toddler out of the house, locked the door, then turned the gun on himself in a suicide attempt.
His DNA was on the pistol, prosecutors Tiffany Finger and Kevin Betancourt told jurors.
Afterward, little Derrick managed to walk about a dozen blocks before a neighbor found him.
The neighbor stayed with the boy throughout the night, keeping him company as police officers searched for his parents. At the time, Miami police issued a media bulletin looking for help finding them, saying the boy answered to the name "David." He was wearing no shirt.
The next night, Miami police found the house on the 300 block of Northwest 43rd Street. Through the window, they saw Barrett bleeding from the head _ he was still alive, sitting on the couch, a gunshot wound to his head, a Ruger pistol at his side.
Bolton lay on the floor, shot to death. Paramedics rushed Barrett to Jackson Memorial Hospital. He survived.
At trial, defense lawyers Adam Brofsky and Larry Schweiker suggested that someone else entered the home and shot Barrett and Bolton.
"We believed there were serious flaws in the investigation," Brofsky said.
Jurors, however, didn't buy the idea of a mystery shooter.
"The house was locked. It would have been very difficult for someone to come in, shoot her, lock the door and leave the gun," said juror Juan Glen. "It was a remote possibility that it would have happened that way."
The conviction has given some closure to those who knew Bolton.
Anderson, the neighbor, said she wants to start a foundation to raise money for children left orphaned by domestic violence.
And while Derrick has left Miami with the Morgans, he still talks about remembering what happened to his mother inside their home. The little boy remembers seeing blood on his mother.
""He's going to need a lot of help," Morgan said. "A lot of guidance and counseling."
