Almost two years after her death – and over a year after more severe charges were laid – Edmonton police have issued a press release about the upgraded charges in the death of an infant, including second-degree murder.
On July 27, 2016, Brandon Calahoo, now 22, was charged with aggravated assault after a two-month-old girl was taken to hospital with serious injuries.
Calahoo pleaded guilty to criminal negligence causing death on Thursday.
According to an agreed statement of facts, Calahoo was dating the baby’s mom. The two lived in a basement suite with Raelyn.
On July 25, Raelyn was crying and it woke Calahoo. The statement says he “shook Raelyn with both hands by the body and the head.” He then left the infant in her crib, even though she was unresponsive.
Later that morning, the mother was concerned that the baby was still unresponsive, but Calahoo told her to leave the baby. The mom tried to feed Raelyn, but she wouldn’t feed and the baby was put back to bed.
At around 11:30 a.m. that day, the mom left to meet a friend. She described Raelyn’s symptoms to her friend, who became concerned. They went home, got the baby and went to the Stollery Children’s Hospital.
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Initially Calahoo and Raelyn’s mom told doctors that Raelyn had suffered seizures. The statement describes Raelyn as “mottled and had bicycling movement of her arms and legs.” She also had swelling on her right eye and unequal pupils. Raelyn was given medicine to combat seizures, was intubated, put on a respirator and directly admitted to the PICU.
On July 27, Calahoo told a social worker that he remembered that Raelyn was crying and he held her with both hands when he had an arm spasm and dropped Raelyn’s head, which hit the crib. He then said he shook her, but not hard.
The next day, doctors determined that, if Raeylyn survived, she would have severe neurological impairment. She was taken off her respirator that day, but continued to breathe on her own. On Aug. 3, the family and medical teams decided to remove her intravenous nutrition and fluids were withdrawn.
The little girl died on Aug. 8, 2016, spurring homicide detectives to become involved in the case.
An autopsy was performed the next day, but the medical examiner wasn’t able to make a determination about the cause of death. Raelyn’s brain and eyes were forwarded to a neurological pathologist who determined her cause of death to be cranial trauma caused by acceleration/deceleration and rotational motion.
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Police incident in Maple Ridge
The cause of death was ruled to be criminal.
Charges against Calahoo were upgraded to second-degree murder and failing to provide the necessaries of life.
Calahoo will be sentenced on June 29.
In a news release issued on Tuesday, police did not say why they didn’t publicly release information when the charges were upgraded in 2017.
“Due to the unusual circumstances of this investigation and the long delay between initial charges and upgraded charges, a media release was not issued in January 2017 when charges were upgraded by the Crown,” the release reads.
The little girl’s death is one of 42 homicides that occurred in 2016, according to police.
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