Prosecutors said that Raylena S. Barlett left the remains of her 6-month-old daughter Khalea Bridgewater in a field. (Mugshot: Jackson County Detention Center)
a Missouri A mother has been accused of abandoning the body of her infant daughter, in a case that leaves open questions about how the 6-month-old died.
Ralina S. Barlett, 25, is incarcerated in the Jackson County Jail in the death of Khalea Bridgewater.
The case came to light on May 13 when Kansas City police responded to a report that an infant had been found dead on a vacant 19-acre lot, prosecutors said in an investigation. New release. The highly decomposed remains were identified as those of the cell.
“The Jackson County Medical Examiner ruled that the cause and manner of death of the child were undetermined,” prosecutors said. “No signs of physical abuse against the child were identified from the investigation.”
Several witnesses, whose identities have been withheld from the documents, described seeing reports of news that a child’s body had been found. ex-wife and great-granddaughter Marty Lammers, She reportedly communicated with the information that the body can have.
“When we got this news the first night, our first reaction was to call the KC Tips hotline,” Lammers said. KMBC In a June 1 report.
“All the pictures I have of her, she’s always smiling,” Lammers said of his granddaughter. Kansas City Star. Her fingers were tucked into her mouth as if she had just pulled herself out of a fishline. She was such a wonderful child, so likable.”
Investigators determined that Bartlett had not reported her daughter’s death to the authorities. It is alleged that she did not make any funeral arrangements.
Bartlett allegedly told different stories to different witnesses about the fate of Khalia. The documents stated that she told a person via a Facebook message on May 7 about the death of the child on May 4. She is alleged to have told another on 7 May that the child took his last breath on 6 May.
A woman, identified only as Witness 2, said Bartlett came to her apartment on May 6 and told her the baby had died of sudden infant death syndrome in his sleep on May 4.
This woman told investigators about her last vision of the baby on Easter – April 9, 2023.
Witness 7 described the smell of garbage in Barlett’s apartment whenever she visited, but on April 23 there was, in the words of court documents, an “unbearable stench.”
“She said Bartlett never told her her child had died,” police said.
The documents stated that the cells’ death and discovery occurred after Barlett’s friend discovered that he was not the child’s father. He allegedly told Witness #6 on April 14 about DNA testing from the child’s hair.
Kansas City police determined that this man, Suspect #2, was not the father. They already had access to the DNA on file.
Witness 6 said she came on April 11 to check on the baby, discovered that the baby had not been changed, and that she saw worms in the diaper, the documents say.
Bartlett allegedly told Witness #6 on April 11: “He (my current boyfriend) wouldn’t let me touch her.”
Witness 1 said that Bartlett, while crying, revealed to her and another person that the child had died. Barlett allegedly told this person about waking up to find the baby dead and blue-faced.
But Bartlett claimed that the police and ambulance responded and that she had asked these two witnesses not to tell anyone about the death.
The documents stated that these two witnesses gave Barlett $500 because she asked for the money to help pay for cremation costs.
When Barlett finally spoke to the police, she later told them Miranda only had two children, not the baby, according to the documents. However, she later allegedly admitted to having a third child, who is now stillborn.
“During questioning, Bartlett gave numerous accounts of the events of the night she died (redacted), and claimed not to know how she died,” the authorities wrote.
According to the redacted documents, she told a story about her boyfriend who told her the child was choking. Bartlett claimed she examined her daughter to find her cold and hard to the touch, with mosquitoes on and around her.
“She stated that she tried to call 911, but (redacted) broke her iPhone and did not allow her to leave the apartment,” the authorities wrote. “She advised that she woke up later and her dead infant (redacted) was no longer in bed with her, and she observed (redacted) the dead infant attaching to her car seat and leaving the apartment. She advised (redacted) and told her he was going to Arkansas, but to tell people he had taken (redacted) to Texas”.
She said she didn’t call 911 when he left because her power was out, her Wi-Fi wasn’t working, and her phone was off.
Barlett continued to change her story, according to the documents. For example, on August 4, she gave investigators a different version of what she was going through before the dead cells were found.
The documents said that Bartlett “stated that the plan was to move[Revised]to Texas so his mother could pay for the funeral and insisted she didn’t know how[Revised]ended up abandoned in a field.”
Authorities said they arrested Suspect No. 2 on an unrelated warrant on May 25. After Miranda, he initially claimed to know nothing of the child, and although he had heard reports of the discovery, he did not know anything about it.
When he was confronted about his name appearing in the investigation and he believed he had information, he asked to speak to his lawyer.
That briefly ended the interview, but Suspect #2 allegedly re-interrogated, waived his right to counsel, and admitted that he “knew Barlett and (redacted) whom he referred to as (redacted)”.
According to the documents, he claimed to have last seen the baby two and a half to three weeks before Mother’s Day on May 14 this year.
The friend said that several days before May 15, Barlett told him via the TextNow app that the baby had died of SIDS, and later told him she had called the police and an ambulance, according to the documents.
He said he did not believe Bartlett did anything intentionally to harm or kill the child, but that he believed Khalia may have died of neglect: the child was malnourished and was getting smaller as she got older.
Barlett allegedly did not take the child to government program appointments to obtain vitamins and nutritional supplements to help the child develop.
He said he knew Barlett was not a good mother and would neglect her children.
The friend allegedly said there was nothing he could do because, although the child had his last name, it was not on the birth certificate.
The documents stated that he initially denied knowing that the child had been found in the woods, but later said that one night, Barlett woke up crying and told him that she had put the child in a large brown bag after she was found dead. She allegedly told him that she had taken the child somewhere, although she did not say the location.
The Jackson County District Attorney’s Office has not announced the charges against her boyfriend. Authorities are described in redacted court documents only as “Suspect No. 2”. He allegedly obstructed investigators before admitting that he learned of Khalia’s death and her mother’s neglect of her.
The investigation is ongoing.
Lammers expressed surprise that there were no charges against Bartlett’s friend, according to the Kansas City Star. He said he told Barlett that if she was convicted, she would have to accept the punishment she would receive.
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