A 25-year-old Florida man is accused of beating to death a 14-month-old baby girl, leaving her twin brother unharmed nearby.
Deric Young was arrested on Tuesday and charged with murder and aggravated child abuse in the death of Ky’meria German, WCTV reported.
Tallahassee Police were called to the scene on Monday and found the unresponsive toddler. She died after being taken to a hospital.
Investigators said they “quickly uncovered signs of foul play” as they investigated the baby girl’s death.
An affidavit filed in Young’s arrest says that he broke down in tears before confessing that he repeatedly punched the baby.
Deric Young Arrest Affidavit by kc wildmoon on Scribd
According to the affidavit, the girl’s mother initially left the children in the care of her cousin, but when the cousin left for work, she left them with Young, the cousin’s boyfriend. Young was at the scene when police arrived and initially denied hurting the girl. But after an autopsy revealed that she “had suffered severe injuries, including multiple strikes to the head with a closed fist that ultimately caused the child’s death,” he changed his story and admitted punching the girl in the head.
“After being presented the details of [the girl’s] injuries, all of which indicated that another person had physically abused her to the point of death, the defendant began crying,” the document said. “When asked, the defendant put forth that he was sorry for what had occurred.”
Young insisted he didn’t mean to kill the girl and said he was only “playing” when he struck her with “both his right and left fists … two to three times both the right and left sides of her head/face.”
After “playing” with the girl, he left her lying on the bed with her twin brother. When he returned, he couldn’t hear her breathing and ran into the living room to have a relative call 911.
According to the arrest report, one of the baby girl’s legs was broken in sucha a way that “would have undoubtedly been extremely painful and severely impacted her ability to crawl or move.”
”My baby didn’t deserve that,” Nickalya Walker, the girl’s mother, told WCTV. “She was a sweet baby. She was sweet. She was a sweet baby. Why would you harm an innocent baby? She didn’t mean no harm at all.”
Ky’meria is survived by her mother and two brothers — an oder brother and her twin brother.
