Child found dead, mother arrested in Southaven
SOUTHAVEN, Miss. — Screams for help echoed through a Southaven neighborhood early Friday morning and now police have charged a woman with the murder of a young child at a house on Bridgewater Drive.
After finding the dead body of her young granddaughter, a woman ran to her neighbor’s house asking for assistance.
“The grand mama was beating on my door with her in her arms, screaming, blood curdling screams I never heard before in my life,” neighbor Jerry Trimble said. “The grand mama was standing there with baby in her arms and I took her from her and me and the little girl across the street – (I) laid her in the yard and we tried to do CPR on her.”
Trimble and the victim’s grandmother did CPR on the child until Southaven paramedics arrived. However, according to police, the victim was already deceased by the time they arrived.
Jessica Tabor, the child’s mother, has been arrested and charged with capital murder.
Trimble said that the victim was one of three children who lived at the address and were being cared for by their loving grandparents.
The two other children were not in the house at the time of the victim’s death.
Police have not released the age of the child or how she passed away, but called this an active investigation. “This incident is a difficult situation for the family and for the officers involved,” they said.
The district attorney’s office released the following statement regarding the situation:
It’s a heart wrenching situation, and we are respecting the privacy of those most impacted by this painful loss. Southaven is an elite department, and we defer to their work during this investigation and will not release information before them.”
District Attorney Matthew Barton
As Tremble’s heart aches for the family of the victim, he said he is struggling to understand how a tragedy like this could happen.
“I just carried a sack of candy over there the other day. She was sitting in the back seat and she was just a grinning up a storm,” Tremble said. “Sweet little baby. Sweet little innocent baby taken away for – I don’t know why.”
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