MARKHAM, Ill. – After beating and suffocating her baby to make the boy stop crying Wednesday night(June 2011), a south suburban woman walked around with the dead infant in a BabyBjorn for several hours the next day, prosecutors claim.
Ken Blackman Jr., 3 months, of Calumet City, was pronounced dead at Ingalls Memorial Hospital in Harvey at 11:40 a.m. Thursday, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office.
An autopsy showed the infant, whose death was a homicide by suffocation, had been dead for up to 14 hours prior to that time, prosecutors said at a bond hearing for Ken’s mother Monday at the Markham courthouse.
Judge Darron Bowden ordered Toyrianna Smith, 20, of 534 Luella Ave. in Calumet City, held on $1 million bond Monday, according to Cook County State’s Attorney’s office spokesman Andy Conklin. She is charged with first-degree murder.
According to prosecutors, Smith took her 3-year-old daughter and the baby with her to a friend’s home at 14923 Washtenaw Ave. in Harvey on Wednesday night, where she did her hair, hung out with friends and drank vodka.