THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL

BABY FOUND DEAD, BURNED BETWEEN HEATER AND BED

Date: Thursday, February 17, 2000

Detectives are awaiting the results of an autopsy to determine what killed a 6-month-old girl found burned inside a bedroom of a Binghamton apartment Wednesday morning.

Paramedics were called at 8:53 a.m. to the Walnut Park Apartments at 188 E. Red Oak. There they found the baby with third-degree burns over much of her body.

The child was rushed to Le Bonheur Children's Medical Center where she was pronounced dead.

The baby's 19-year-old mother told police she put the baby in a twin bed Tuesday night with another child, an 18-month-old girl.

When she got up to check on the children, she said she found the 6-month-old wedged between the bed and an electric baseboard heater, police spokesman, Officer La Tanya Able, said.

It was not clear if the woman was also the mother of the other baby or whether she had been sleeping in the same room as the children.

Authorities would not release the names of the woman or the dead baby.

However, Connie Wakeman, property manager of the Walnut Park Apartments, identified the tenant and mother as Tekita Herron.

"We have baseboard heaters," Wakeman said. The metal cover for the heater had been removed for some reason, she said.

"Apparently, they had pulled it off," she said of the tenants.

Homicide detectives were questioning the mother and a boyfriend, who was also in the apartment. They were trying to determine where each of the occupants was during the hours before the child's death.

A distraught-looking woman and two males, none of them handcuffed, were taken away in the back of a police car late Wednesday morning.

No one had been arrested or charged in the case.

Shelby County Juvenile Court records show that a Tekita Herron, who would now be 19, had a lengthy history with Juvenile Court as a child.

She had contact with the court 19 times in five years for neglect, truancy and other offenses. She was also a habitual runaway.

She was first brought to the court's attention in 1993 when she was just 12 years old. She and two brothers were judged to be dependent and neglected and were removed from their home.

It was unclear Wednesday whose custody she was in at the time. Her mother had lost custody.

Usually it's recommended that babies sleep in baby beds, with barriers that prevent them from falling over the edge, until they are about 2 years old, said Marie Sell, program manager for an early Head Start program, Bright Start.

"It's hard to put an age on it. Most people, when advising parents to buy baby cribs, say the baby is going to be in this crib for two years," Sell said.

"The most important thing has to do with the baby's physical development, that they won't roll over and off the side of the bed."

The cost of baby beds is a challenge for many impoverished young mothers, said JoeAnn Ballard, executive director of Neighborhood Christian Center.

The interdenominational social service agency runs a variety of programs in the Walnut Park Apartments complex, including food pantry, clothes closet, tutoring and adult networking. The complex is privately owned, but tenants qualify for federal rent subsidies. Herron, for example, paid no rent, Wakeman said.

"She probably didn't have the money to have a baby bed," Ballard said of the mother.

"A baby bed is expensive . . . It's some kind of tough to get a baby bed. Every baby bed we get at the Neighborhood Christian Center is gone within 24 hours."

The least expensive baby bed at the Wal-Mart Supercenter in Southaven Wednesday cost $79.96, and the mattress was $24.96.

Both Ballard and Sell said many impoverished young mothers don't learn important parenting skills.

"It's so easy to assign blame, especially when a child dies. You have to caution yourself over and over again not to do that," Sell said.

In the past, parenting skills were passed down from generation to generation, Sell said.

"One of the things that's happening is, with there being more and more family disruptions, there isn't the focus on being able to teach those skills to children as they get older."

The incident Wednesday was the second in less than a week in the same neighborhood involving an injury to an infant.

Last Thursday, 7-week-old Martima Williams, of 180 Red Oak, was injured during a domestic fight between her parents. The child was originally in critical condition, but her condition has been upgraded to satisfactory. The child's father, Michael Williams, 29, is charged in a warrant with two counts of aggravated assault.

To reach reporter Tom Bailey Jr., call 529-2388 or E-mail him at baileytom@gomemphis.com

To reach reporter Chris Conley, call 529-2595 or E-mail him at conley@gomemphis.com