Police: Ashley Cameron Planned 15mo Son's Drowning

[Whisper]

ONAWA, Iowa -- An Iowa mother is accused of forcing her son's head under a bathtub faucet, drowning the 15-month old.

Onawa police said they believe Ashley Cameron, 25, planned the whole thing.
Cameron is charged with first-degree murder and is being held on $1 million bond stemming from the February drowning of Markis Dahms.

Investigators said Cameron held her son's head under the faucet until he couldn't breathe, but her friend maintains Cameron is innocent.
It's the first murder case in Onawa in nearly 40 years.
The Iowa State Medical Examiner's Office conducted an autopsy on the boy and determined the cause of death to be drowning and the manner of death as homicide.
"He was in the bathtub. His head was under the faucet. His mouth and nasal cavity filled with water," said special agent Mitch Mortvedt.
Onaway police believe Cameron deliberately held Dahms underwater.
Authorities said Cameron called 911 and told dispatchers that Dahms wasn't breathing.
"When she moved in, she was all confused. We took her under our wing. She's been like one of my kids," said neighbor Rita Poole.
Poole said she knows Cameron well and baby-sat for her.
"Knowing her, it might've been done accidentally, but there's no way it was deliberate. No way," Poole said.
Cameron lived in her Onawa home with two children. Abigail is 2 years old, and she was taken away in the first week of the investigation.

Authorities said Abigail is with family now.
"I want it to get back to as normal as possible. I want her to get her daughter back," Poole said.
Barbara Jessing, of the Heartland Family Services, said if anyone has concerns about a parent, they need to speak up.
"What we know about parents in child maltreatment is it often happens in conjunction. (There are) two things that are really prominent. One is high stress in parents' lives, and the other is isolation," Jessing said. "I think we have to be willing to say something, even if it's difficult to express our concern."
Every year, authorities said 16 states are surveyed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for violent crime numbers, but Iowa and Nebraska are not among them.
However, the CDC said that between 2005 and 2009, there were 427 children between birth and 4 years of age in those states who died at the hands of their parents.
Poole said she can't believe Cameron would do this intentionally.
"I'm devastated. Absolutely devastated. But I don't believe for a minute that girl did anything to hurt her baby," said Poole.
Cameron was in the Monona County Jail being held on $1 million cash bond Thursday night.
[....]

http://www.ketv.com/news/30925079/de...#ixzz1sdj0HL71

[AngelFire]

OMG How could this whore do this? She needs an Xray of her heart,I bet they won't find shit in her chest. How do you hold that sweet cheeks under water?? Oh never mind, the day I know the why, I will fucking put a bullet in my temple.

@Whisper girl you are fucking with my mind tonight.

[Whisper]

OMG How could this whore do this? She needs an Xray of her heart,I bet they won't find shit in her chest. How do you hold that sweet cheeks under water?? Oh never mind, the day I know the why, I will fucking put a bullet in my temple.

@Whisper girl you are fucking with my mind tonight.

sorry,,some days just seem to be all about the worse cases

[AngelFire]

I know, right? It's like a snowball effect. Hate those trends. My God it keeps getting worse and worse for kids with crazy adults near them. With any hope she will either kill herself, or someone else will. Either way, she needs to stop sharing oxygen with the rest of us.

[Tundratot]

He was so sweet! Look at that little face! WTF would you want to drown him for? Because you don't know where kids come from and how you managed to have two that you clearly can't take care of? Bitch, you had help already!

[Marv]

"Knowing her, it might've been done accidentally,

I would love to sit down with Rita Poole and have her explain to me how a baby could be ''accidentally'' held under water until he drowned. And ''knowing her''? What does that mean? Is she implying Cameron was a bit simple and often did stupid things with her kids, putting them in danger?

[VAS1326]

I would love to sit down with Rita Poole and have her explain to me how a baby could be ''accidentally'' held under water until he drowned. And ''knowing her''? What does that mean? Is she implying Cameron was a bit simple and often did stupid things with her kids, putting them in danger?

I was thinking the same thing. How does one accidentally hold a child under water. Especially one who is big enough to really wiggle and squirm. You would have to use force to hold a child down to drown him that way. There is no way it was accidental. The way Rita Poole made it sound was like she was a cluess ditz.

"When she moved in, she was all confused. We took her under our wing. She's been like one of my kids," said neighbor Rita Poole

[Bohring]

Accidentally? Exactly how long does she think it takes to rinse shampoo?

[CbabyRKO]

Ashley Cameron has no heart and Rita Poole has no brain. Is this Onawa's production of the Wizard of Oz? If so, it fucking sucks!

[sanityslipping]

It took me and an extra nurse to hold DS still for his shots at that age. I don't imagine a baby fighting for his life would be easy to hold under running water. In fact, I can almost guarantee I couldn't do it from outside the tub... I'd have to be in the tub practically sitting on him to hold him still to keep his face under the faucet. No way she did that on accident. Although, to be fair, I've never restrained my kids w/ the intent of hurting them, so i might have an easier time holding the buggers down if I weren't concerned they came out okay on the other side of things.

[HeatherHabilatory]

My son, 10 months, is snoring away in his swing.

I can not imagine, in five months, killing him, especially by forcefully drowning him. I'm a little scared of giving him a bath by myself. If my husband isn't here, I have my ten year old daughter on standby, in case something happens.

what in the actual fuck is wrong with people?

[Dakota Valkyrie]

While a doctor delivered the bad news to Ashley Cameron that there was nothing more that could be done for her son, the little boy's older sister was coloring at the nurse's station.

Unprovoked, the 2 1/2-year-old girl declared to nurse Rachel Pinkelman, "Markis f----d up. He threw up," Pinkelman testified Wednesday morning.
[...]

Pinkelman's testimony, given during the second day of Cameron's murder trial, was given over strong objections from Cameron's attorney, Mike Williams, who said the girl's statement had no relevance and was being entered as a ploy by the state.

"It's making a square peg fit in a round hole, and the state is trying to use it to show malice," Williams said.

Pinkelman said the girl's statement shocked her, but she did not ask her any questions about what she meant.

"I'm not trained to do that," she said.

District Judge Jeffrey Neary said he would allow the statement entered for now, but might rule otherwise later.

An investigator testified Tuesday that Cameron said Markis had vomited in the bathtub in their home and she held him under a running faucet to wash his head and mouth. She did this five or six times because Markis kept vomiting.

Haylee Simpson, who babysat for Cameron's kids numerous times, said that a few days after Markis' death, Cameron told her that police reports of the incident were "a bunch of bull."

"She said he was puking and all I did was hold his head under the water to wipe the puke off," Simpson said, while holding her arms as if she were holding a child.

Cameron has waived her right to a jury trial, and Neary will decide her case. If found guilty of first-degree murder, Cameron would face a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole.

http://siouxcityjournal.com/news/loc...796fa54ed.html

[Obsolete]

What kind of parents sticks their sick kids face under a faucet to "wipe" the vomit away? Whatever happened to using a wash rag?

[Dakota Valkyrie]

From yesterday's trial start:

As Markis Dahms was transported to the Onawa hospital by ambulance, paramedics tried to get a tube into his airway to help him begin breathing again.

But the amount of water, vomit and particulates inside his little body prevented them from getting a tube into his mouth.

"Water was coming out like a fountain, just oozing out and down his neck," paramedic Ronald Freeman testified Tuesday.

Freeman said that 200 milliliters -- about 2 cups -- of fluid was suctioned out of the toddler in the ambulance, and more that wasn't measured soaked the sheet beneath him.

"You should not normally get that much water out of someone that small," Freeman said during the first day of testimony in the trial of Markis' mother, Ashley Cameron.
[...]

Dr. Mary Groda-Lewis, who attended to Markis in the emergency room that night, said an additional 150 ml of fluid was sucked from Markis once he arrived at the hospital.

Deputy Iowa State Medical Examiner Dennis Klein said he found another 200 ml of water in Markis' stomach during the autopsy.

Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation Special Agent Daniel Dawson testified that during a third interview with Cameron, she said Markis had vomited in the tub and she put his head under the running faucet to wash him off and wash out his mouth. He kept vomiting, she said, so she kept holding his head under the running water. This happened five or six times, she told Dawson, the final time after Markis had turned blue.

Dawson said that account best matched the evidence in the case. Cameron, he said, had given other versions of what happened and she seemed to be "floating out" different versions to see what he would believe. Cameron first said that Markis vomited in the tub, raised his arms up, his face turned blue and he fell back in the water. Cameron later told Dawson that her 2 1/2-year-old daughter was in the tub with Markis and had pushed him under a couple of times. Cameron also said that she herself had poured a few cups of water over Markis' head to clean him off.

Dawson said that after Cameron told her the final version about holding Markis' head under the faucet, she told him that "she was glad the truth finally came out."

Klein said that version made the most sense, because it was the only scenario that accounted for the large amount of water found inside Markis' body. He would not have ingested so much water under any of Cameron's other accounts, Klein said.

During his opening statements, public defender Mike Williams said he was not disputing that Markis drowned, but said Cameron wasn't in the bathroom when it happened. Cameron may be guilty of child endangerment, he said, but not murder.

"Because Ashley was not in there, we really don't know what happened," Williams said.

Williams said Markis may have had a seizure, and autopsy findings showed scar tissue on his brain that may have caused seizures. [...]

Groda-Lewis and Dr. Shannon Kennedy, who both examined Markis during regular check-ups after his birth, said Cameron never mentioned any concerns about seizures.

Groda-Lewis said she did have concerns about Cameron's mental health. At times, Cameron had more than the usual stress a single mother living by herself with two children experiences. Cameron had a troubled relationship with the children's father and she also was very concerned about what people thought about her as a mother and a person. When she told Cameron in the hospital that there was nothing more they could do to save Markis, Groda-Lewis said Cameron sank to the floor, started crying and said "that people are going to accuse her of killing her child."

Monona County Attorney Ian McConeghey said in his opening statement that Cameron did just that.

"There is no legitimate, lawful purpose for holding a baby's face under the water that many times," McConeghey said.

http://siouxcityjournal.com/news/sta...10f5e0655.html

[Tundratot]

What kind of parents sticks their sick kids face under a faucet to "wipe" the vomit away? Whatever happened to using a wash rag?

An angry, stupid, homicidal parent.

Cameron had a troubled relationship with the children's father and she also was very concerned about what people thought about her as a mother and a person. When she told Cameron in the hospital that there was nothing more they could do to save Markis, Groda-Lewis said Cameron sank to the floor, started crying and said "that people are going to accuse her of killing her child."

Exactly right, bitch. And since that's the first thought to occur to you upon hearing your son is dead--not something regarding your grief--I'd say that would be a pretty accurate assessment.

[Dakota Valkyrie]

A mother accused of drowning her toddler in a bathtub took the stand Friday and denied that she repeatedly stuck her son's head under the faucet.

Instead, Ashley Cameron testified she left the room to get shampoo and clothes, leaving 15-month-old Markis Dahms alone with his 2½-year-old sister, Abigail. Cameron returned to find Markis lying in the water.

“At any point did you hold Markis' head under the spigot ... to rinse his mouth out?” her attorney, Mike Williams, asked.
Cameron replied: “No.”
[...]

The trial ended Friday with the prosecution giving closing arguments. Williams will submit the defense's closing arguments in writing by Tuesday. Monona County District Court Judge Jeffrey Neary will then render a verdict after considering the evidence.
[...]

During her testimony, Cameron said Markis had thrown up both before and during the bath. She placed her two children in the tub and left for a few minutes. When she returned, she realized Markis was in trouble and tried to give him CPR, doing compressions with two fingers. She stopped to text a friend for help before calling 911.

Williams asked Cameron why she contacted a friend before calling emergency dispatchers.

“I freaked out. I didn't know what to do,” she said. “I was panicking. ... I was a mess.”

Under cross-examination, Susan Krisko, a lawyer with the State Attorney General's Office, pointed to the differences between what Cameron originally told investigators and her testimony on Friday. Cameron at one point said that she saw Abigail hold her brother under the water.

Cameron testified that she was confused while being interviewed by investigators. “Any mom that would see her son die would not know how to react in that situation,” she said.

She also testified that she was afraid of what her family would think if they knew that she had left her children unsupervised in the bathtub.
[...]

In his closing arguments, Assistant Monona County Attorney Ian McConeghey said the story Cameron initially told investigators — that she had placed the child's head under the spigot — best fit the physical evidence.

Markis swallowed 550 milliliters of fluid or more, Mc*Coneghey said. During the ambulance ride to the hospital, a police officer noted that the child's stomach was distended — as if he had swallowed a bowling ball.

Drowning takes two or three minutes. That means Cameron had plenty of time to consider her actions, he said.

A woman who identified herself as Cameron's aunt said anyone who heard the recording of Cameron's 911 call that night could not think that she had harmed her child.

The recording was played in court while Cameron was on the stand. On the recording, she shrieks: “My son is not breathing! ... He was in a bathtub!”

The female dispatcher urges Cameron to calm down: “I can't understand you.” But Cameron continues to yell.

As the recording played, Cameron pulled off her wire frame glasses and wiped her eyes with a tissue. She bent her head down and began to sob.

http://www.omaha.com/article/20130426/NEWS/704279945

The 25-year old woman, accused of drowning her 15-month old son, took the stand, and she also reached out to News Four's Kristen Johnson.
[...]

Later, with the sheriff's approval, she called KTIV, and said she just wanted people to know what really happened the night her son died.

We started with the most basic and frank of questions, did she kill her son?

"I love both my kids. I wouldn't ever hurt a child," Cameron said.

She says she's not a murderer. However, Cameron admits she could have been a better mother.

"When I left that room, that was my fault. I admit I should have never left that room," she said calmly.
[...]

"I felt like the officers, at the time, were pushing me to what they wanted to hear," Cameron said.

Cameron said she was under a lot of stress.

"I was in a domestic violence relationship and I had been sexually assaulted in March which I did not report," Cameron explained.

She sounded distressed when she called 911. Her defense team played the call for the courtroom. In it, she's nearly inaudible. The dispatcher tells her over and over that she can't understand the address she's giving. Cameron repeatedly says her son can't breathe.

"I was in shock. That was the first time I'd heard it, and it just hurt me so bad," Cameron explained.

On the witness stand, prosecutors asked her to read her own written statement, she gave to police, but she almost seemed to go off script.

"I took him into the tub, and he started puking. I put him under the tub faucet, or spigot, to try to remove the puke, at least 5-6 times. As far as I know, it was 3-4," she corrected.

Whether or not it was an admission of guilt will be up to the judge to decide. Cameron reiterated over and over in our phone interview, that she does not deserve to spend the rest of her life behind bars.

When asked what kind of punishment she did deserve, Cameron said, "I feel child endangerment would be the best one. I did not hold him under that faucet. As God as my witness, I did not."

Cameron said she hasn't seen her daughter since she was arrested, but still keeps in contact with her.

http://www.ktiv.com/story/22092601/2...-her-own-words

[Dakota Valkyrie]

Ashley Cameron presented no evidence that seizures may have led to her son's drowning in a bathtub, and she alone is responsible for his death, prosecutors said in court documents filed Monday.

Assistant Iowa Attorney General Susan Krisko said no medical evidence of seizures was presented during Cameron's weeklong trial last month, and several trial witnesses testified that they never saw and signs of seizure activity from 15-month-old Markis Dahms. Family members who testified about seizure-like episodes are not credible, Krisko said.

"It just so happens these family members want to believe the story that gets (Cameron) out of trouble and they have now embraced that retelling of Markis' history," Krisko wrote in a rebuttal to the defense's closing statement filed last week.
[...]

Cameron waived her right to a jury trial, and District Judge Jeffrey Neary will decide her case.

Public defender Mike Williams said in his written closing statement last week that Markis sometimes arched his back involuntarily, exhibiting a type of seizure. Williams said the boy could have had a seizure after Cameron left the bathroom. Cameron testified that she left the room to get shampoo and clean clothes for Markis and that when she returned, he was lying face down in the water and not breathing.

Investigators testified that Cameron admitted holding Markis' head under a running faucet in the tub five or six times until he drowned. Krisko reiterated that a medical examiner testified that that scenario is the only one that explains the amount of water found inside Markis' body by emergency responders and during an autopsy.

With the final filing by the state, the case is now in Neary's hands. He said Tuesday that he hoped to have a ruling soon.

"Within the next couple weeks would be feasible," Neary said.

http://siouxcityjournal.com/news/loc...bd23d544c.html

[Tundratot]

If he were really having regular seizures, why then was he never taken to a doctor for them? Perhaps because they were caused by abuse, too, resulting in brain damage.

[Dakota Valkyrie]

There was no doubt that Ashley Cameron caused the death of her son.

But her actions the night of Feb. 11, 2012, did not rise to the level of murder, District Judge Jeffrey Neary said Friday.

Neary found Cameron guilty of involuntary manslaughter and child endangerment causing the death of a child.

"Ashley Cameron has conceded that she was negligent and as such has committed child endangerment insomuch as she took certain actions which resulted in the death of her son Markis Dahms, but she never intended to cause his death," Neary wrote in his 19-page ruling, filed after he announced his verdict before Cameron in the courtroom.

Cameron, 25, had been charged with first-degree murder, a charge that carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole. Instead, she faces a five-year sentence for manslaughter and 50 years for child endangerment. Sentencing is scheduled for June 28 in Monona County District Court.

"We were just hoping that murder in the first was off the table. We don't feel she deliberately killed her child," said Mary Agnich, the mother of a woman who is the longtime girlfriend of Cameron's father.

Neary's ruling made it clear that he, too, did not find that the state proved Cameron had intentionally killed her 15-month-old son. Cameron had waived her right to a jury trial, choosing instead to have Neary decide her case.
[...]

Neary said that during his deliberations, he reviewed audiotapes of Cameron's interviews with investigators. Cameron did describe to them that she ran water over Markis' head from the faucet, "but not to holding his head under the spigot as one might do to intentionally drown an infant," Neary wrote.

Neary said prosecutors failed to prove Cameron acted with malice aforethought, a key element to proving first- or second-degree murder. Neary said those interviews with police, plus the recording of a hysterical Cameron calling 911 were helpful in determining that malice had not been proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

Neary said he could not find Cameron guilty of attempted murder, because the state failed to prove Cameron acted with the specific intent to cause Markis' death. Neary also ruled out voluntary manslaughter because the charge requires the state to prove Cameron's actions "were done solely by reason of sudden, violent and irresistible passion resulting from serious provocation."

"There is no factual basis to support this element or any suggestion of provocation ...," Neary wrote.

Instead, Neary said the facts in the case supported a finding of guilty for involuntary manslaughter: Cameron left Markis unattended in the bathtub, she acted "in a manner likely to cause death," and by leaving Markis unattended in the tub, she unintentionally caused his death.
[...]

"Ashley Cameron's actions in leaving Markis unattended in the bathtub with water resulted in the death of Markis Dahms," Neary wrote.

"My assessment of the verdict would be that it seems to comport with what we believed," Williams said after the verdict was announced.

Monona County Attorney Ian McConeghey declined to comment on the verdict other than to say he disagreed with it. He said he would ask Neary to run Cameron's sentences consecutively for a total sentence of 55 years. Neither sentence requires that a minimum length of time be served before Cameron is eligible for parole.

"The board of parole can let her out whenever they see fit," McConeghey said.

http://siouxcityjournal.com/news/loc...1a8b6b6af.html

[brandi]

So, if his head was not intentionally held under the faucet, how did he have so much water in his little body? All the water amounts added up almost equals a gallon! How do you explain the little girl's statement of her brother FUCKED up, I mean what 5 yo speaks this way? Was that not a huge red light? Why was she not spoken too more? Just too many loose ends..

[Dakota Valkyrie]

So, if his head was not intentionally held under the faucet, how did he have so much water in his little body? All the water amounts added up almost equals a gallon! How do you explain the little girl's statement of her brother FUCKED up, I mean what 5 yo speaks this way? Was that not a huge red light? Why was she not spoken too more? Just too many loose ends..

Intentionally held under the faucet... but not with the intention to kill him. Personally, I think if she had intended for him to die, she would have just held him under the water in the tub or in the toilet. I would never have thought of drowning someone under a faucet - especially a screaming wiggly 15 month old.

[Tundratot]

Her own daughter said the little boy f***ed up by vomiting. I'd take that to mean Ashley's response was anger and that she acted to clean him up (by forcing his face under the faucet) in the most aggressive and bitchy way possible. That would be passion, or aggravation in my book.

[badfish76]

This one got to me really bad. If I had been in a more private place I would have cried.

I can't believe this shit. If that stupid fucking cunt had made one remark EVER to anyone about wanting to be rid of the baby boy she would have copped murder in the first. I guess when you're that vile you have no one to tell because people can't stand to be around you.