The parents of an eight-month-old girl have been charged with her murder after she allegedly suffocated when she became “wedged” between a mattress and a couch cushion inside their squalid home.
Kiara Davis, 27, and Miguel Badillo, 24, from Columbus, Georgia, were taken into custody last Wednesday and charged with second-degree murder, second-degree child cruelty and possession of drug paraphernalia.
Officers from Columbus Georgia Police Department had been called to their home in Rosemont Drive on September 27 to a report of a dead child.
Inside the property, detectives found the infant unresponsive. Her cause of death was later ruled asphyxiation.
According to investigators, the eight-month-old girl had been put down for a nap on an angled mattress on a two-seater couch, while Davis stepped outside to talk with a friend.
Police said that there were “no safety measures in place to prevent the infant from rolling off and becoming wedged between the mattress and couch cushions.” The child ended up becoming wedged and suffocating.
An CGPD investigator described the filthy conditions inside the home during a court hearing last week, detailing animal feces, insects, and rotten food throughout the property.
“There were multiple animals inside the house that were unconfined,” the investigator told a judge, according to WTVM.
“There was animal feces. There were insects in every room of the house. There was half-eaten food that was decaying in every room of the house.”
The parents were “well aware” of the conditions in the home, the investigator said.
Meanwhile, the couple’s landlord Howard Turner described Badillo and Davis as kind parents who struggled to make ends meet, insisting he did not think they were cruel.
“They were very caring for that baby, from what I could tell,” Turner told WTVM. “It was just like a freak accident.”
Arrest warrants were obtained for the infant’s parents on November 8 and they were taken into custody days later, according to police.
They are now both being held without bond in Muscogee County Jail.
The Independent has contacted the CGPD for more information.
