Friday, Sep. 16, 2011
Johnson charges upgraded to murder after Belton baby's death
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By Allen Edmonds, The Democrat Missourian
A 33-year-old Belton man faces second-degree murder charges after his four-month old daughter died as the result of injuries she suffered in an alleged beating Aug. 30.
De’Wayne C. Johnson is being held on $500,000 bond after admitting to Belton Police that he had shaken the child for approximately one minute Aug. 30 when she wouldn’t stop crying after falling from her bed. The child died at Children’s Mercy Hospital early the morning of Sept. 10.
Officers were called to Research Belton Hospital just after 9 p.m. Aug. 30 after receiving a report of child abuse. Upon their arrival, officers observed the infant being tended to by numerous hospital staff members. She appeared to be unable to breathe on her own, according to court documents.
Officers noticed a bruise on the left side of her face, as well as a bruise on the bottom right side of her chin. Both bruises appeared to be swollen and were consistent with being struck by a hand or other object, according to the probable cause statement.
The child’s mother told officers she had gone to work at a Belton restaurant at 6 a.m. Aug. 30, leaving Johnson in charge of watching the infant and her twin sister. The mother said Johnson picked her up from work at approximately 1 p.m., and both twins were inside the vehicle. The injured child was asleep in the car.
The mother said she became alarmed when they arrived at home and the child remained asleep. She said at that time, she noticed a bruise on the child’s face, and asked Johnson what had happened.
“I don’t see anything, what are you talking about?” Johnson asked the mother, according to the police statement.
Johnson then asked the child’s mother to tell the hospital that the baby was with someone else and not him.
At the hospital that evening, Belton police overheard Johnson telling the child’s mother that he didn’t “recall her falling. I know she didn’t fall.”
When the mother confronted him about physical abuse, Johnson said, “I did not physically put my hands on anybody,” the report said. An officer later confronted Johnson and asked if he had admitted that he had struck the child.
“No I’ve never,” he said. “I haven’t struck a child that’s my own, that’s my daughter. There’s no way I would strike a kid, she’s defenseless,” he allegedly told the officer.
According to the report, he went on to tell the officer that “yes, she fell, but it wasn’t intentional. They were in bed asleep, taking a nap in another room. I was in our room and then I came in and grabbed her. She was fine up until 1 o’clock.”
Johnson reportedly told officers that the child went to sleep at 1 p.m., “and she hasn’t woken up since. She had been wheezing and making noise.”
He told the officer that he grabbed both kids and took them with him to pick up their mother from work. He said it was between 10:30 and 11 a.m. when the infant fell from the bed.
The baby was flown by air ambulance from Research Belton to Children’s Mercy later that evening. A doctor at the Kansas City hospital told officers the child was going into surgery and was in critical condition with swelling on her brain due to bleeding and a possible hernia.
The doctor told officers that the injuries could have “definitely not” been sustained by falling from a bed 23 inches from a carpeted floor, court documents said.
The following morning, Johnson allegedly told a Belton detective that he had shaken the child after she had continued to cry after she had fallen onto the carpeted floor.
He told the detective he had shaken the child out of frustration for about a minute, but later wrote in a written statement that the shaking had continued for about 30 seconds.
Contacted that day by Belton Police, a Children’s Mercy physician confirmed that the child’s injuries were consistent with being shaken violently.
Early this week, charges in the case were amended from first degree assault, to second degree murder.
As a result, prosecutors asked for and received an increased bond amount of $500,000. He will next appear before Associate Circuit Judge Mike Rumley at 9 a.m. Sept. 15 for a case review.
