On Wednesday, an Iowa couple has been arrested for the death of their 4-month-old son who died weighed less than 7 pounds and in a diaper that hadn’t been changed in a week.
20-year-old Cheyanne Harris and 28-year-old Zachary Koehn face charges of first-degree murder and child endangerment resulting in death. The couple lives in Alta Vista, Iowa, a town of fewer than 300 people about 170 miles northeast of Des Moines, according to the complaint affidavit.
Koehn called an ambulance to his Iowa home just before 1 p.m. on Aug. 30, he told the dispatcher that his girlfriend, Cheyanne Renae Harris, had fed their 4-month-old baby just hours before and had last checked on him at 11 a.m but found their baby dead hours later, according to court documents.
However, the State Medical Examiner ruled the death a homicide, with the cause of death “a failure to provide critical care.”
The criminal complaint says an autopsy by the State Medical Examiner’s Office found the infant measured well below the 5th percentile in size and weight for the child’s age. Maggots were also found in various stages of development on the child’s skin and in his clothing. A forensic entomologist was able to determine the child “had not had a diaper change, bath, or been removed from the seat in over a week.”
“The facts of this case go far beyond neglect and show circumstances manifesting an extreme indifference to human life,” the court documents said.
On Wednesday, the couple was arrested and charged with child endangerment causing death, a class B felony, and first-degree murder, a class A felony punishable by life in prison.
Their stories are inconsistent with the findings of the autopsy, authorities say as Koehn initially told police that Sterling died after his 911 call. However, he and Harris later claimed the baby had not been checked on since the previous day.
The Chief State Medical Examiner in the Iowa State Medical Examiner’s Office, Dennis Klein, described the details of Sterling’s death included in the complaint affidavit as “pretty explicit.
Severely underweight and only 14 inches long, Sterling was well below the 5th percentile in size and weight.
A preliminary hearing is set for November 2 and the couple is being held on $100,000 cash-only bond, according to the Chickasaw County Sheriff’s Office.
Article Sources: Chicago Tribune, Crime Watch Daily, Crime Watch Daily/Facebook Photo Credit: Las Vegas Review Journal
