Infant

The parents of a 7-week-old infant and another man were indicted by a Harford County grand jury in the April death of the baby, who had been under the close watch of county social services, officials said yesterday. Richard Mosely, 22, and Giovanna Mosely, 26, of Abingdon have been charged with second-degree murder, first-degree child abuse resulting in death, and second-degree child abuse nearly five months after their son, Seth, was found unresponsive in the family's Abingdon apartment on April 10. Daniel Reilly, 20, of Bel Air, also was charged.

Baltimore police are searching for the parents or guardians of an infant who was discovered crying and abandoned under a park bench in West Baltimore in a steady drizzle Tuesday night.Doctors at University of Maryland Medical Center estimate the boy is between 10 and 12 months old. The infant was determined to be in good health after a checkup at the hospital and was handed over to city social workers."He seems to be well cared for and nourished," said Sue Fitzsimmons, a spokeswoman for the Department of Social Services.

An infant was killed yesterday when a small hatchback in which she was riding was rear-ended by a car driven by a man on a rain-slicked street in East Baltimore, city police said.Moments after the crash at 11 a.m. on Erdman Avenue, witnesses said, the child's distraught mother carried the injured 5-month-old girl into the Garden Bar, where a patron and later a police officer administered cardiopulmonary resuscitation."The mother was screaming and the baby wasn't breathing," said Josh Evans, 34, who works nearby and helped carry the baby inside.

A 3-month-old boy was killed and an 11-year-old boy and a woman were injured last night in a one-alarm fire at their home in Govans in North Baltimore, a fire official said.Battalion Chief Hector L. Torres, a Fire Department spokesman, said the blaze apparently began shortly after 10 p.m. in the infant's second-floor rear bedroom in a brick rowhouse in the 5600 block of Alhambra Ave.Torres said the fire caused extensive damage to the second floor before firefighters brought the blaze under control in less than 30 minutes.

A 17-year-old mother, whose infant daughter was found abandoned near Sinai Hospital on Tuesday, was charged yesterday as a juvenile with child abandonment, Baltimore police said.The 6-month-old girl was found in a stroller by a passer-by at 10: 15 p.m. near the rear of the medical complex in Northwest Baltimore, police said. Sinai physicians declared the infant to be in good health and turned her over to the city Department of Social Services for foster care, according to a department spokeswoman.

County police are investigating the death of a 4-month-old girl whose father called 911 for help, saying she had stopped breathing, authorities reported.When paramedics arrived at the Pasadena home in the 1100 block of Annis Squam Harbour about 1: 30 p.m. yesterday, they found the father attempting to revive the infant with cardiopulmonary resuscitation, said Sgt. William Krampf, an Anne Arundel County police spokesman.Krampf said the paramedics continued CPR until arriving at North Arundel Hospital, where the infant was pronounced dead.

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.

Nearly a month after two infants died in bed at their day care provider's home on Kent Island, investigators still don't know why the seemingly healthy babies stopped breathing during an afternoon nap.Police say toxicology reports have ruled out tainted food, which at first was believed to be a possible cause. Frustrated detectives from the Queen Anne's Sheriff's Department have turned to the Internet for help."We have searched the Internet, looking for similar cases," said Capt. Curtis Benton, a department spokesman.

MedImmune Inc. said yesterday it has filed for approval from the Food and Drug Administration to market in the United States its new drug to prevent a common infant respiratory disease.The move has been anticipated for some time by analysts.The Gaithersburg-based company said it has selected Synagis as the trade name for the drug, developed to prevent serious respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, disease in infants and young children.Before the FDA makes a decision on the request, an advisory body must hold a public hearing on the proposal.

Carroll Circuit Judge Luke K. Burns Jr. is expected to announce his verdict Friday in the trial of a Taneytown woman accused of smothering her infant daughter and hiding the body in woods near Prettyboy Reservoir last summer.After six days of testimony, Burns heard closing arguments yesterday in the trial of Lisa E. Ruby, 20, who is charged with first-degree murder, battery, child abuse and reckless endangerment.Prosecutors argued Ruby was so frustrated over tending her 4-month-old daughter, Tabitha L. Meekins, that she placed a rag in the baby's mouth and covered the nasal air passage with her hand to kill her on Aug. 6, 1996.

Ken Watts had a restless night and an eventful morning. He awoke about 4:30 a.m. to the sound of a motor running, looked out his window and saw a police vehicle outside his house on Wilke Avenue. "I knew something in my neighborhood was going on," he said. Watts returned to bed, got up at his usual time and walked to his car about 7:15 a.m. He saw yellow police tape draped around the front yard of a house three doors up the street in his Northeast Baltimore neighborhood. "I knew something really bad was going on," he said.

A Pasadena father pleaded guilty Monday to manslaughter, admitting that he had shaken his 1-month-old daughter too hard as he tried to calm the crying infant. The child, Lilyanna Alora Wirick, died Jan. 15, six days after she was taken to the Baltimore Washington Medical Center in Glen Burnie, then transferred to Johns Hopkins Children Center. In a low, sometimes-hoarse voice, John Wayne Wirick, 32, answered the questions posed by Anne Arundel County Circuit Court Judge Paul A. Hackner.

The baby's eyelids were swollen with fluid. His head was misshapen and marked by dark reddish-purple bruises. And the 15-day-old boy suffered multiple fractures that stretched 14 inches across his skull. The infant's father, Kenneth G. Ryan, told police last year that he blacked out after inhaling the spray from a can of electronics cleaner and awoke to find his son injured. Yesterday, the 21-year-old Catonsville man pleaded guilty to charges of second-degree murder and child abuse, admitting that he inflicted the injuries that caused the baby's death.

The parents of a 7-week-old infant and another man were indicted by a Harford County grand jury in the April death of the baby, who had been under the close watch of county social services, officials said yesterday. Richard Mosely, 22, and Giovanna Mosely, 26, of Abingdon have been charged with second-degree murder, first-degree child abuse resulting in death, and second-degree child abuse nearly five months after their son, Seth, was found unresponsive in the family's Abingdon apartment on April 10. Daniel Reilly, 20, of Bel Air, also was charged.

An Army investigation into why two babies living about 100 yards apart at Fort Meade contracted infant botulism within several months of each other confirmed what the Army has said all along: that the bacteria had been naturally occurring. Yet one of the two families -- whose children have recovered -- has filed a $3 million claim against the federal government, alleging that the Army was negligent when it allowed a giant pile of dirt and construction debris to be dumped near both of the homes in a residential community.

State police probe Cecil infant's death State police are investigating the death of a Cecil County infant Tuesday night after the state medical examiner ruled the death a homicide. No charges have been filed, but authorities are interviewing family members and their friends to determine how 5-month-old Calob C. Martin died, police said. Martin's mother called 911 shortly after 8 p.m. Tuesday after finding the boy unresponsive in his crib, police said. He was taken to Harford Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead about 9 p.m. Police declined to identify the infant's parents.

A Glen Burnie mother was convicted yesterday of killing her baby girl last year - a beating case that authorities say she initially blamed on her toddler son. Arkia Douglas, 22, entered an Alford plea to child abuse resulting in death, in which she did not admit to the crime to Anne Arundel County Circuit Judge Joseph P. Manck, but acknowledged that prosecutors had sufficient evidence to obtain a conviction. Prosecutors said Douglas battered the child and then placed the limp baby in a swing.

How is it that Maryland, the nation's third-wealthiest state, ranks only fair to middling in how well its children are faring, according to a national report released this week? The latest Kids Count report from the Baltimore-based Annie E. Casey Foundation says Maryland is 23rd among all states on 10 indicators of child well-being. That's a drop of four places since last year, when the state ranked 19th - and it should be absolutely unacceptable for a state with such a reserve of financial and human resources.

A former Villa Julie College student accused of murdering her newborn daughter told a judge yesterday that she was not responsible for the child's death. "I've never done nothing in my life," Danielle Eboni Riley, 21, said during a bail review hearing at District Court in Towson. "I didn't do what they said." Riley, of Forestville in Prince George's County, is accused of killing her baby shortly after giving birth in October in a dormitory at the college's satellite campus in Owings Mills, according to charging documents filed Wednesday.

A former Villa Julie College student was charged yesterday with murdering her newborn daughter, whose body was found this fall in a storm drain in Prince George's County. Danielle Eboni Riley, 21, of Forestville is accused of killing her baby shortly after giving birth in October in a dormitory at the Villa Julie satellite campus in Owings Mills, according to charging documents filed yesterday. An autopsy concluded that Riley's baby died from head trauma, asphyxiation and environmental exposure, according to the charging documents.