If Mississippi’s child protection agency had been able to find a 4-month-old baby born addicted to pain killers, he might be alive today, according to testimony in a court hearing.
Child Protective Services was looking for the parents of Denilson Marcus Elligson because his addiction was reported after he was born at Memorial Hospital in Gulfport. He went through withdrawals while in the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit, according to testimony Wednesday afternoon in Justice Court.
CPS looked for the baby but couldn’t find him, Gulfport police Detective Justin Clifton testified. He said the couple moved frequently to avoid CPS.
After Clifton’s testimony, Judge Brandon Ladner denied a request to reduce the $300,000 bond for the baby’s mother, Angel Ja’Nai Williams, who remains jailed on two felony charges.
Gulfport detective questions parents in baby’s death
Clifton had interviewed both the mother and father at the Gulfport Police Department after the baby died.
Williams, who initially denied the baby had been abused, faces up to 25 years in prison on charges of contributing to felony child abuse and hindering prosecution.
The baby’s primary caretaker, the father for whom he is named, Denilson Marcus Elligson, is charged with capital murder and faces the death penalty. Capital murder is committed with a second felony, in this case child abuse. Elligson is being held without bond on the capital murder charge.
Clifton found the family was at an address on Lewis Avenue that CPS did not have when emergency services responded to a 911 call about a nonresponsive infant on the afternoon of April 23, court records say. The baby was pronounced dead at the hospital. CPS took custody of a 3-year-old in the home, he said.
“Detective Clifton learned that Child Protective Services had open cases of substantial child abuse involving the parents of the infant,” underlying facts in the case say. County Prosecuting Attorney Herman Cox argued against bond reduction for Williams, saying she initially denied the abuse and also eluded CPS, indicating she is a flight risk.
Clifton said the baby had at least 16 fractures in various stages of healing. The baby’s father was his primary caretaker , while Williams worked from around 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
In an initial interview, Clifton said, Williams claimed she did not know why the baby died and denied any drug use. She said Elligson did not abuse the baby, the detective said.
Evidence of drug use found in home
The baby’s father admitted that he would pick up the baby and squeeze him with both hands around the rib cage to stop him from crying. Ellingson made a clicking sound to indicate what he heard when squeezing the baby’s chest, the detective said.
The father, Clifton said, “stated that he did this numerous times over a two-month period.”
The baby was found to have at least 16 fractured bones in various stages of healing, Clifton testified. The last time the father squeezed the baby, the baby went limp and was unresponsive, prompting the 911 call..
When the detective later questioned Williams again, she admitted Elligson had abused their baby and that the couple was using drugs. She said that she had used the potent pain killer fentanyl during her pregnancy and was still using it. She said that she and Ellingson took turns using the drug so one of them could watch the children.
The baby was taken to the doctor on one occasion, Williams told Clifton, because he had a knot on his side. Learning of the appointment, CPS sent a worker to the followup appointment hoping to make contact with a parent, but neither of them showed up with the baby, Clifton said.
When investigators secured a warrant and searched the home, they found no food in the refrigerator and expired canned goods in the cabinets, Clifton said. He said there was what appeared to be powdery drug residue in the house where pills had been crushed and snorted, along with a bong in the bedroom for smoking marijuana.
Staff Writer Margaret Baker contributed to this report.
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