Dad arrested in death of 5-month-old daughter; baby died of blunt-force trauma to the head (Seneca, South Carolina)

Dad MATTHEW TAYLOR HINTON has been arrested on homicide charges in the death of his 5-moth-old daughter. The baby died of blunt-force trauma to the head.

http://www.upstatetoday.com/news/2009/aug/20/seneca-police-investigating-infants-death-homicide/

Father arrested in Seneca child's death
Infant died of head trauma
By Andrew Moore
Originally published August 20, 2009, 01:50 p.m. EST.
Updated August 20, 2009, 03:29 p.m. EST

SENECA — A five-month-old girl has lost her life and her father has been arrested and charged with homicide by child abuse.

Seneca officers were called to Oconee Medical Center at approximately 10:54 p.m. Sunday in response to a possible case of child abuse after EMS transported Brianna Bright from Northwoods Apartments, Apartment 129-F off of South Radio Station Road.

Units had been dispatched to the apartment complex on a call of an infant not breathing by her father.

Thursday afternoon police were interrogating her father, 22-year-old Matthew Taylor Hinton. He was expected to be arraigned following police questioning.

“She was stabilized at Oconee Medical Center and then transferred to Greenville Memorial Hospital,” Chief John Covington said. “At 2:10 p.m. Tuesday, she was declared dead.”

Thursday morning an autopsy was performed in Anderson. Maj. Pete Normandin and Coroner Karl Addis confirmed Thursday afternoon that the child died of closed head injury as a result of blunt force trauma.

The child’s death is the third murder this year in Seneca, after the city had gone without a homicide for five years prior to last March when Alfred Dawkins allegedly stabbed his sister, Johelen Dawkins Owens, to death in the kitchen of a Seneca residence.

Continue to visit upstatetoday.com for further information on this developing story.