Suspect in Alabama 3-year-old’s death says she saw girl being sexually assaulted
Published 9:33 pm Friday, December 13, 2019
Two people charged in the death of a 3-year-old girl each blamed the other for harming the child in their statements to police, according to testimony from a police investigator.
Birmingham police homicide Detective Jonathan Ross testified Friday during a hearing that Derick Irisha Brown told police she saw her boyfriend, Patrick Smallworth, forcing the child, Kamille “Cupcake” McKinney, to perform oral sex on him at their Center Point apartment.
Ross said Brown said she later saw Stallworth leave the apartment with a trash bag.
The two are charged with capital murder for the death of McKinney, who disappeared from a Birmingham housing project. Her body was found 10 days later in a dumpster.
Ross testified earlier this week that Stallworth said Brown had the child in their apartment and that she put her hands over the girl’s nose and mouth.
He told the detective that the girl was then “asleep.”
An autopsy did not find evidence of sexual assault, but prosecutors argued the decomposed state of her body might have prevented that.
A judge ruled that there was enough evidence to send the case to a grand jury.