A 10-year-old girl from Portland, Maine has been charged with manslaughter in the death of an infant. The infant’s death is said to involve a combination of medication and suffocation. The girl is the youngest to be charged in at least 25 years. Click below to read more.
The girl, who is not being identified, is the youngest person to be charged with manslaughter in Maine in at least 25 years. The infant, Brooklyn Foss-Greenaway, of Clinton in central Maine, had been left overnight with an adult baby sitter in nearby Fairfield.
The sitter called police early July 8 to report that the infant was not breathing, authorities said. Emergency workers who arrived minutes later reported that child was unresponsive.
The death of any child under age 3 triggers an automatic investigation in Maine, and detectives uncovered some “troubling signs” before the state medical examiner declared the death a homicide, said Stephen McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety.
The death was declared a homicide Wednesday, but investigators withheld further details on the cause of death.
Brooklyn’s mother, Nicole “Nicki” Greenaway, of Clinton, said the 10-year-old was the sitter’s daughter. Authorities told her the baby had ingested medication to treat attention-deficit disorder and been suffocated, she said, adding that she also saw bruises on her daughter’s body.
The 10-year-old girl was already in the custody of the Maine Department of Health and Human Services when a summons was delivered to her attorney on Thursday, McCausland said.
Police declined to identify the girl, who is due in juvenile court in October. Her attorney didn’t immediately return a call from The Associated Press.
