This story has been updated with additional information.
A Juneau man has been arrested on suspicion of murdering a one-month-old girl with a “blunt force injury of the head” in a hotel room following a seven-month investigation, according to police and court documents.
James White, 44, is suspected in the death of the infant on April 15 at the Super 8 motel near the McNugget Intersection, according to a Juneau Police Department information release published Friday evening. The injuries inflicted were described by the doctor performing the autopsy as similar to “an impact where an adult care giver grabs the infant by the midsection and slams it to the ground,” according to the criminal complaint filed Friday in state district court.
White, when asked about the infant’s death last Wednesday, told a JPD officer “in essence that it wasn’t planned out,” according to the complaint.
Three other siblings in White’s care — ages 2, 5 and 12 — were also in the two-room suite at roughly 5 p.m. when the infant was found not breathing.
The oldest child told police White and the infant were in the separate bedroom, and “she could hear (the infant) crying and James White trying to calm her. She said she heard (the infant) go quiet,” according to the complaint.
Shortly after the oldest child said she saw her 5-year-old sibling trying to get her attention while carrying the infant who was “lifeless,” according to the complaint. The 12-year-old was initially unsuccessful trying to wake White – who according to a JPD officer smelled of alcohol during an interview a short time later — but was able to do so after contacting her mother by phone.
Police and firefighters responded to a report at about 5:35 p.m. that the infant wasn’t breathing, with the infant receiving CPR at the scene and being transported by Capital City Fire/Rescuer responders to Bartlett Regional Hospital. The infant was pronounced dead at about 8:37 p.m. “and had a skull fracture and bleeding on the brain,” according to the charging document.
Medical records also stated “concern of healthcare provider about possible non-accidental traumatic (and) overall findings are concerning for non-accidental trauma,” according to the court document.
An autopsy released two days later by the State Medical Examiner’s office in Anchorage classified the cause of death as a homicide due to a blunt force injury to the head.
“The injuries were beyond what a 3-year-old could do,” the charging document states, referring to observations by the medical examiner who performed the autopsy. “He said those injuries wouldn’t be caused by an adult holding the infant accidentally or even rolling over the infant. (The doctor) said he would expect those types of injuries if the infant was struck by a car or unrestrained in a car crash. He said this is more of an impact where an adult care giver grabs the infant by the midsection and slams it to the ground.”
But despite the autopsy findings there still wasn’t enough probable cause to arrest White for the infant’s death since possibilities other than intentional harm still need to be investigated, JPD Deputy Chief Krag Campbell said in an interview Monday.
“We still are gathering information and trying to create the best case possible so when we do go to arrest we feel like we’re solid,” he said. “What we don’t want to do is rush to something and not have it, and then our case just (falls) apart because we just rushed. And those things take time.”
Campbell declined to state whether White continued to live with the other children and/or their mother during some or all of the time between the infant’s death and his arrest. Sufficient evident to arrest White last week was due to “continued interviews and evidence collection that we were able to identify a suspect,” Campbell said.
White, in an interview with police the day of the infant’s death, said he’d been having relationship difficulties with his wife and didn’t believe he was the infant’s father. The wife, who called 911 after arriving at the hotel in response to her oldest’s daughter’s text message, subsequently told police he’s been “having anger issues lately” and “she is nervous to be around him.”
White was arrested last Thursday — a day after being confronted by a JPD officer about causing the infant’s death and stating it wasn’t planned — on suspicion of a separate domestic violence incident last Thursday evening on Willoughby Avenue and incarcerated at Lemon Creek Correctional Center. He was contacted at the prison by JPD officers on Friday and arrested for second-degree murder, according to the department’s release.
He made a felony first appearance on Friday at the Juneau Courthouse on a charge of second-degree murder with extreme indifference, according to the Alaska Court System online database. A preliminary hearing is scheduled Nov. 25.
The department’s information release last Friday was the first public notification a homicide of an infant had occurred. The daily bulletin for the incident, published nearly a day later on the afternoon of April 16, states merely “JPD assisted another agency” on Trout Street at 5:17 p.m. There was no follow-up public notification when the April 17 autopsy classified the death as a homicide.
Campbell on Monday said that omission was likely due to how the database system JPD uses for its incident reports. The system was implemented two years ago “and I think we are still struggling with a system that doesn’t pull information that we want in the way we want it.”
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at mark.sabbatini@juneauempire.com or (907) 957-2306.
