February 01, 2004
Mother ignores boy's death
Full story: Beacon Journal
After returning from a friend's house about 5 p.m. Tuesday, Johnson-Millender told investigators, she put Joshua to bed sometime between 7 and 8 p.m. and then gave him ``a bottle of half water and half milk.'' When she returned to the child's room at 11:30 p.m., she said, Joshua was not breathing and was unable to open his hand or close his eyes. ``Mother knew he was dead,'' the complaint stated, ``and sat up all night and smoked cigarettes.'' Sometime after a 911 call at 4:50 p.m. Wednesday, Canton Fire Department paramedics arrived at the apartment in the 800 block of Alan Page Drive Southeast and found Joshua dead in his crib, according to the complaint. ``The child's comforter was completely saturated in urine,'' the complaint stated, ``and a full bottle was underneath the pillow.'' Police arrested Johnson-Millender that night and charged her with involuntary manslaughter and felony child endangering. Police said she remained in the Stark County Jail on Friday in lieu of a $500,000 cash bond. The complaint stated that Johnson-Millender and a friend were watching television on the morning after Joshua died, that the friend called a relative hours later, and that the relative was the one who made the emergency call. Stark County Chief Deputy Coroner P.S.S. Murthy, who performed an autopsy on Joshua on Thursday, said the child weighed only 10 pounds, 4 ounces. He said the cause of death was ``a severe case of malnourishment'' -- medical terminology for starvation. Murthy said the child's stomach contained only a ``brown material'' that he presumed to be milk. Johnson-Millender admitted to investigators that she had not given Joshua solid food since New Year's Eve ``because she was tired of cleaning up puke,'' the complaint stated.Posted by stupefied
02:11 PM