Dennis Cherry, suspected of driving into two young brothers in Providence, killing one and seriously injuring the other, turned himself in Monday night. Kathy Dagraca, right, the mother of suspect Dennis Cherry, is comforted during her son’s arraignment yesterday in District Court, Providence.

The ProvideNCe Journal / Andrew Dickerman The Providence Journal / Mary Murphy

PROVIDENCE — Dennis H. Cherry Jr., 26, an alleged crack addict with a lengthy criminal record accused of mowing down two boys with his car and killing one of them, gave himself up to Police Chief Dean M. Esserman in a surrender brokered by the pastor of the church where the chief’s family worships.

Cherry, some of his relatives, and the Rev. Olivier Bala of Mount Hope Community Baptist Church drove in a three-car convoy to the parking lot of the East Side church for a near-midnight rendezvous Monday. There they met Esserman and five police officers, the chief and others related at a news conference yesterday.

Esserman, who had guaranteed Cherry safe conduct to police headquarters, personally accompanied the suspect to the third-floor lockup and stayed with him for about an hour.

Cherry, who the police have called a crack addict, was kept overnight and arraigned yesterday morning on two felony charges for allegedly fleeing the scene of the accident. He was ordered held without bail at the Adult Correctional Institutions as an alleged probation violator on a breaking-and-entering conviction.

The accident occurred Sunday afternoon, as Ivan Jimenez, 8, and Eric Jimenez, 12, the sons of Elizabeth Jimenez, of 77 Bellevue Ave., in the West End, walked home to Bellevue Avenue from a quick trip to a nearby convenience store to buy food, according to the police.

Cherry’s car crossed from the southbound lane of Bucklin Street to the northbound lane, went up on the sidewalk, struck the boys, crashed through a chainlink fence and came to a stop in a vacant lot at the corner of Hanover Street, the police said. They have not suggested a cause for the accident.

Ivan was killed and Eric suffered serious head trauma, a punctured lung and a broken leg, the police said. Last night he remained in critical condition at Hasbro Children’s Hospital.

After he tried to back out of the vacant lot, according to two witnesses quoted in a police report, Cherry got out from behind the wheel of his gray 1989 Mercury Grand Marquis and cursed at the sight of the boys’ prone bodies. The boys’ stepfather, Dustin Delcon, 28, who had apparently run from the Jimenez family apartment nearby, told the police that he grabbed and tried to detain Cherry at the scene. But Cherry struggled free and ran off.

A day and a half later, Cherry was praying with his family’s pastor at the house of a relative and preparing to surrender to the police, who have had him in custody many times before. With the arranged surrender, the police halted an around-the-clock manhunt in which officers had called on members of the Cherry family and searched crack houses, abandoned buildings and other hangouts frequented by crack addicts.

“He was very remorseful,” Mr. Bala said of his meeting with the suspect at an undisclosed house. “He said, ‘This feels like a dream. Somebody needs to wake me up.’ He was broken. I sat with him. We prayed together. You could tell that he was really hurting.”

When a calm Cherry was led into a fourth-floor courtroom at District Court yesterday, the only sound he made was the jangling of the chains linking the cuffs around his wrists. Kathy Dagraca, his mother, sat in the front row, her shoulders shaking with anguish.

Although the police have said that he had no permanent address, Cherry listed his address with the court as his mother’s house in Warwick.

He is being held, in part, in lieu of $50,000 bail with surety on a charge of leaving the scene of an accident, death resulting, and leaving the scene of an accident, serious bodily injury resulting. No pleas were entered, as pleas to felony charges are not taken in District Court.

Also keeping him in prison is his alleged violation of probation stemming from a six-year-old case in which he broke into a woman’s apartment in Providence. Police officers found Cherry trying to hide behind a coffee table. He pleaded no contest to the charge in 2001 and served a year in jail, with nine more years of his sentence suspended, and probation.

Her face showing devastation, Dagraca handed a Providence Journal reporter a handwritten note at court: “Our hearts are deeply saddened by this terrible accident. Our thoughts and prayers are with the family of the two boys.

“Dennis, myself, and our family ask for forgiveness and ask for prayers for all involved. We know that there are no words to describe what both families are going through. God be with us all through this time.”

In his days as a youngster in the Edgewood section of Cranston, according to Journal news archives and the police, Cherry enjoyed some success. At 10, he was a student of the month and an alternate for the spelling bee at the Chester Barrows School.

At 12, he was playing centerfield for the McDonald’s Reservoir Avenue baseball team in the Cranston League. At 15, he was playing for the Edgewood Eagles Junior Bantams football team.

But his behavior deteriorated. Less than two weeks after he turned 18, court files show, Cherry was under arrest — and beginning a lengthy adult criminal record.

He has been arrested 15 times, including 3 times for failing to appear in court for his cases, according to law-enforcement authorities. Records show that Cherry has been convicted of selling cocaine to an undercover officer, driving a stolen car, possession of an illegal weapon, shoplifting and larceny, among other counts. He generally has pleaded no contest to the charges over the years, served time at the ACI and attended court-ordered drug programs.

His most recent drug rehabilitation began last December, when he was enrolled in the residential program run by MAP Alcohol and Drug Rehabilitation Services in Providence after he was arrested for possession of a knife and violating his probation, according to court records.

William Rose, MAP executive director, cited confidentiality when asked about Cherry’s attendance in the program. But a letter from the program in March that was submitted to the court stated that Cherry was doing well.

“Client appears to display a positive attitude toward understanding his chemical dependency, and maintaining abstinence,” the letter stated. “The client appears motivated and is progressing well.”

Just two months ago, Cherry received a certificate for completing MAP’s “Self-esteem Building Group,” which was included in his court file.

The organization quickly learned about Cherry’s alleged involvement in the accident.

“Everyone around the community and in the streets knew about it, and it got back to us,” Rose said. “I wish he had reached out to us.”

It was Monday night, according to Mr. Bala, when Lisa Tavares, of Pawtucket, Cherry’s godmother and a loyal congregant, telephoned to ask for the pastor’s help in contacting Esserman. Although he is Jewish, Esserman regularly attends Sunday services at Mount Hope Community Baptist Church with his wife, Gilda Hernandez, and their children.

Dagraca, her fiancÉ and two other Cherry relatives had met Esserman Sunday night at Rhode Island Hospital, where Dagraca had been taken to the emergency room for an undisclosed reason. The chief urged them to have Cherry turn himself in.

The chain of events was divulged at a news conference at the Public Safety Complex and then further explained later by the chief and the pastor, who Esserman called a friend of his family.

The fiancÉ, identified only by his last name of Collins, was especially impressed by Esserman, according to Mr. Bala, and the family had decided that they would have Cherry surrender to the chief personally. The pastor called the chief, set up the meeting, met with Cherry and his family and then kept the rendezvous.

It is unusual, although not unprecedented, for a police chief to personally accept the surrender of a suspect, according to Esserman and Maj. Paul C. Fitzgerald, who has led the investigation of the accident. Esserman said he has done it a few times before in Providence and other police departments where he worked, but he cannot remember the details.

“It’s never been a rainy night in a parking lot,” Esserman said.

amilkovi@projo.com