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"Everywhere he went, everybody would know Jarnell," said his mother Juanna Graham.
So when Jarnell lost both his appetite and his energy in February 2006, Graham could not help but worry.
"He was throwing up, wasn't eating, he wouldn't get up off the couch," Graham said. "He couldn't walk. He would just get up and fall."
Twice, Graham took her son to doctors, told both times he had a virus. The second time, with Jarnell in a coma, he died, later found to have toxic levels of lead.
"That was something I just couldn't believe," Graham said. "Lead poisoning?"
Graham could also not believe its source: the charm from a bracelet included with a pair of Reebok shoes she'd bought just weeks before. Jarnell had somehow swallowed it, seen after his death in an x-ray.
"I grabbed the x-ray and the bracelet was in him," Graham said.
That charm was 99% lead, and the levels in Jarnell's blood were triple what's considered safe. Made in China, the Consumer Product Safety Commission later recalled 300,000 of the bracelets, and Tuesday fined Reebok $1 million, its largest ever civil penalty.
"I think it sends a very, very forceful message to companies," said Nancy Nord, acting chairperson of the CPSC.
A message Juanna Graham says bears repeating, hoping manufacturers will listen because of money, but also because she's a mother.
"I just want to tell them to please, please please watch what you put out there," Graham said.