http://www.kokomotribune.com/news/l...cle_6230bbf0-cfcb-11e7-bdb0-3fbcc62da10d.htmlAuthorities 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.
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