Benjamin Alexander Russell (Anok County Sheriff’s Office) Suvanna Russell (KARE screenshot)
A 38-year-old father in Minnesota will only spend about a decade in prison after he admitted to killing his 3-month-old daughter more than a decade ago by smothering the infant with a pillow to “muffle her cries,” telling investigators he just “couldn’t handle any of it.” Anoka County District Court Judge Jenny W. Jasper on Monday sentenced Benjamin Alexander Russell to 11 1/2 years in a state correctional facility for the 2009 slaying of young Suvanna Russell, court records reviewed by Law&Crime show.
Russell was initially arrested for Suvanna’s death in July of last year and charged with one count each of second-degree murder and first-degree manslaughter. After initially pleading not guilty to both charges, Russell in May reached a deal with prosecutors in which he agreed to plead to the murder charge in exchange for the 11 1/2-year sentence and the manslaughter charge being dropped.
Because Russell had never previously been convicted of a crime, under Minnesota state law he was facing a maximum sentence of only 15 years for the murder charge. Judge Jasper also credited Russell with 389 days of time already served.
Officers with the Coon Rapids Police Department and Emergency Medical Services from Allina Health at approximately 1:32 p.m. on Jan. 19, 2009, responded to a 911 call from Russell reporting an unresponsive infant at his home located in the 13100 block of Meadowood Curve NW.
Upon arriving at the scene, first responders found the baby unconscious and not breathing. Paramedics began performing life-saving procedures. EMS personnel transported the child to a local hospital where she was pronounced dead.
An autopsy was performed and determined Suvanna’s cause of death to be “positional asphyxia.” Also known as postural asphyxia, it occurs when a child’s body position prevents them from breathing properly.
At the time of his daughter’s death, Russell told investigators that he had put his daughter down for a nap earlier in the day and used a blanket to prop a bottle up for the child before leaving her alone for approximately one hour. The little girl’s mother was at work during this time. When he returned, Russell claimed that the baby had rolled onto her stomach and was positioned face down with her head buried in the blanket.
The Defendant said when he went to roll her onto her back, she did not respond,” the warrant states. “He gave her mouth-to‐mouth CPR until paramedics arrived. She was non-responsive.”
But, upon further review — and with the benefit of damning 2022 admissions from Russell about “the perfect alibi” — it became clear that his daughter’s death was a murder.
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The defendant on July 4, 2022, told the baby’s mother — identified in court documents as “NK” — that he killed the infant with a pillow when she would not stop crying.
“The Defendant explained that [Suvanna] would not stop crying while he was trying to lay her down for a nap and he ‘couldn’t handle any of it,’” the warrant said. “He took a pillow and placed it over [Suvanna’s] face to ‘muffle the sound,’” left the room to smoke a cigarette, and “returned twelve minutes later.”
When he returned to check on his daughter, he said the infant had turned “blue.”
“The Defendant told NK that she had given him the perfect alibi at the time of Child A’s death because she had told him to remove the pillows and blankets from Child A’s crib the night before,” court documents said. “Since he knew the blankets shouldn’t have been there, he told the investigators he had used them to prop up a bottle and Child A rolled into the blanket.”
Court documents further revealed that Russell, prior to his arrest, had two young children under the age of 2 and that family viewed him as an overwhelmed parent who had said concerning things.
“[T]he Defendant has said he is angry he has them [the other children] when God knows what he did to Child A,” the warrant said. “On July 8,2022, the Defendant sent a text message to the mother of his youngest children. He wrote, ‘I don’t give a shit about those kids if you’re not a part of it [SIC].”
Prior to Russell being formally sentenced, Suvanna’s mother told Minneapolis NBC affiliate KARE that she did not think the sentence was sufficient for what he did to their daughter.
“I feel like she was cheated,” she told the station. “To give him 138 months is extremely unfair. It’s unfair to her because she only got three months of her life.”
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