The 7-month-old girl had two burst blood vessels in her eye when she was dropped off at a day-care center in March.
The center’s staff noticed more injuries when she was dropped off over the next few days at the center in the Minneapolis suburbs: bruises and scratches on the baby’s cheek the next day, and more on her back the following day.
When the staff asked the baby’s caretaker — the live-in boyfriend of the girl’s mother — about the injuries, he said the child was injured at home, according to a statement of probable cause.
The next morning, on March 24, the man, Chris McMorris, didn’t bring the child to day care.
Instead, he called 911.
When emergency responders arrived at a home in Brooklyn Park, Minn., a few miles northwest of Minneapolis, they saw McMorris sitting on a bed as he talked on the phone.
The 7-month-old was lying on the floor, motionless.
She was pronounced dead less than two hours later.
Details in the statement of probable cause indicate that the infant died a painful death. She had 11 rib fractures, plus bruises on her scalp, abdomen, back and buttocks. Her lacerated liver bled into her abdominal cavity, the document says.
Based on her injuries, authorities said she was struck in the abdomen multiple times. They ruled her death a homicide.
Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman told The Washington Post that McMorris killed the child after finding out he wasn’t her biological father. A paternity test confirmed as much just three days before the child was killed.
McMorris, 24, was charged last week with two counts of second-degree murder, punishable by up to 30 years in prison.
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SOURCE: Kristine Guerra
The Washington Post
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