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Sugar Cookie

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Authorities charged a Kokomo man with the murder of an 8-week-old infant Wednesday, after the child died from severe head injuries caused by blunt force trauma.

The Howard County Prosecutor’s Office charged Jaquail I. Smith, 22, with murder, aggravated battery and voluntary manslaughter.

According to a probable cause affidavit, officers and representatives from the Department of Child Services responded to Community Howard Regional Health at 8:30 p.m. Nov. 8, regarding a child being brought to the hospital with severe head injuries.

As Detective Brent Wines was arriving at the hospital, the male infant, August, was preparing to be airlifted to Riley Children’s Hospital in Indianapolis, Wines noted in the affidavit. However, he was able to shoot five photos, detailing marks on August’s face, legs, torso and a “large hematoma on the back of his head.”

The child’s mother agreed to an interview at the police station before she left to join the child in Indianapolis.

She told investigators she left the infant alone with Smith, her boyfriend, who went with her to the hospital, but left to grab some clothes from their apartment, on the 1300 block of East Alto Road. Smith is not the child’s biological father.

She left the child alone with Smith at around 5:30 p.m., as she left to run some errands. She said August was asleep, and Smith was playing a video game when she left.

At 7 p.m., she returned and found Smith in the baby’s room. He was claiming that earlier, the baby wasn’t breathing, but he was able to get him breathing again, reassuring her that he was OK now. The woman noted August’s head was swollen, and, according to documents, Smith said he didn’t know how it happened. They then went to the hospital.

Smith arrived at the police station for an interview, and he claimed he had no idea how August sustained the injuries.

During Smith’s interview, the infant was still alive in the hospital.

Smith told detectives he fell asleep playing videogames after his girlfriend left the apartment. When he woke up about an hour to 90 minutes later, he found that August was not breathing. He began to shake the baby where he was lying and pinched him, but did not receive a response, state documents. When he pinched the baby’s cheek, he responded and started breathing again. Smith said he then changed the baby’s diaper, and his girlfriend arrived shortly after.

Smith maintained he didn’t know where the injuries came from, and that there was no one else in the apartment other than himself and the baby. He denied hitting or dropping the baby in any way.

Detectives and the Department of Child Services personnel received permission to check the apartment, and documents state they found nothing out of the ordinary.

At 4:30 a.m., KPD Detective Wines received word August had died.

The Marion County Coroner’s Office would later rule the cause of death to be blunt force trauma. A deputy coroner who was at the Indianapolis hospital and witnessed Smith’s conduct around 8-week-old August, told detectives he had seen Smith apologizing to the infant. When asked, two family members also told police they saw Smith apologizing to the child.

In another interview on Nov. 13, Wines asked Smith why he apologized to August. Documents state that “Smith went silent, but eventually told me he was supposed to protect August and he didn’t. When I asked what he was protecting August against, Smith … said he did not know.”

Smith maintained he did not hurt August, nor know how he got his injuries, at one point claiming “he knows how this looks.”

A screen test for Smith the day August was transported to the hospital allegedly revealed he was under the influence of THC, amphetamine and methamphetamine.
http://www.kokomotribune.com/news/l...cle_6230bbf0-cfcb-11e7-bdb0-3fbcc62da10d.html
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Shifty SOB. His eyes are diverted away from the camera and his forehead is tense.

As if, "I killed the little guy but, don't blame me". I hope his left eye is swollen because someone someone landed a good south hook.
 
'If I don't look at the camera, you won't know I did it'

Two year old logic from a troglodyte.

RIP littlest, you didn't deserve this. :pout:
 
Jul 11, 2019
A Kokomo man was sentenced to 65 years in the Indiana Department of Correction after a jury found him guilty of murder and aggravated battery in the November 2017 death of an infant left in his care.

Eight-week-old August Minniear had a skull fracture and a hemorrhage on his brain that experts described during the trial as injuries that would have either occurred from being dropped from a distance of several feet or something that would have happened during a high-impact motor vehicle crash.

The defendant, Jaquail Smith, 23, sat motionless for several minutes during the hearing as several of August's family members testified about what life is now like without what they described as their "happy" baby.

The infant's great-grandmother Audry Gard told the court "he never got to experience life, only a brutal death," she stated.

Smith was also permitted to provide a statement on his own behalf during Wednesday's hearing, and he called August's death a tragedy. He also continued to profess his innocence, saying in part that he loved August dearly and had nothing to do with the infant's death.

Smith is planning to appeal his conviction and subsequent sentencing.

Jan 31, 2020
An Indiana court has denied the appeal of a Kokomo man convicted of murder after a jury determined he killed an infant by bludgeoning the child with a mason jar when the baby was crying.

Jaquail Smith, 23, was sentenced in July to 65 years in prison on a murder conviction after he killed an 8-week-old baby who was in his care.

The mother of the child left the baby with Smith in June 2017 to run errands. When she returned home, she saw Smith sitting on the bed and immediately noticed her child’s head was swollen on the side.

The baby later died at Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis. An autopsy revealed the cause of death was blunt force injury to the head.

Smith appealed his conviction, arguing the evidence against him was “conflicting” and that the jury was presented with “equally plausible” versions of events and chose the State’s version rather than his.

The Indiana Court of Appeals said Friday in a written brief that “This is precisely the jury’s prerogative.”

“It is exclusive province of jury to weigh conflicting evidence,” the court said. “The State presented substantial evidence of probative value to support the jury’s verdict.”

The court also pointed to the fact that police found several mason jars in the apartment, and Smith’s own testimony confirmed that he went to the apartment while the baby was in the hospital and hid a glass mason jar in the bushes, according to court documents.
 
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Kinzie Minniear, August's mother, also took to the witness stand and testified about how her son's death has left a permanent impact on her own life.

"I feel like you took everything," she stated as she looked at Smith. "I can't take it anymore, and that's because of you. How do you respond to this without anger? I close my eyes and see my son. And right behind him, I see you."

Your everything did not stop you from needing a penis - did it mom?

Don't you DDs worry she had her replacement baby.
 
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