The state medical examiner's office has ruled that an infant who died three months ago was malnourished, and Baltimore police have launched a search for the parents, whom they charged with murder.
Andre Reginald Jones and Lisa Banks Smith, both 31 and both of the 100 block of N. Fremont Ave., were charged in arrest warrants Thursday with first-degree murder, child abuse resulting in death and assault.
Agent Angelique Cook-Hayes, a police spokeswoman, said Jones and Smith drove the 7-month-old infant, John Adrian Jones, to the University of Maryland Medical Center emergency room Nov. 19. He died the same day.
Detectives originally ruled the death suspicious. Cook-Hayes said yesterday that autopsy results show the infant died of a heart attack after being malnourished.
A police report filed in the incident says the parents told detectives the child had been fed about 1: 30 p.m. that day and then placed in a crib for a nap.
The mother told police she checked the child about 3: 30 p.m. and again about 5 p.m., when she noticed the boy's face had turned blue, according to the report.
She then dressed the infant and drove to the hospital.
Emergency room doctors performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation for 26 minutes before pronouncing the child dead at 5: 45 p.m. The police report says the emergency room doctor thought the child was malnourished and that a CAT scan revealed bleeding on the brain and a healed fractured femur.
Pub Date: 2/28/98
