Dad charged with killing mom, 1-year-old daughter to avoid child support (Washington, DC)

It appears that dad RICHMOND PHILLIPS was a married man who didn't want to pay child support to his girlfriend. So he "allegedly" shot the mother to death, and left the baby in a hot car to die from hypothermia. We need better social and economic assistance for unmarried mothers. Relying on child support from dangerous ex-boyfriends just puts women and children at risk.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-police-officer-charged-with-womans-murder-after-she-and-baby-are-found-dead/2011/06/03/AGWCqQIH_story.html

D.C. police officer charged with woman’s murder after she and baby are found dead
By Matt Zapotosky and Paul Duggan, Published: June 3

Richmond Phillips, a married D.C. police officer, met in a Prince George’s County park on Monday with Wynetta Wright to talk about her year-old daughter.

Phillips was due in court the next day for a hearing that would begin to determine whether he was the baby girl’s father and, if so, how much he’d have to pay to support her.

The meeting ended horribly, police said. Phillips, 39, allegedly pulled out a gun and killed the 20-year-old Wright with a bullet to the head. He then left her body in the park, drove her car up a hill away from the scene and abandoned the baby in the car, according to law enforcement officials with direct knowledge of the case.

When an officer found the car Thursday, after the scorching midweek heat, the baby was dead. As police awaited autopsy results Friday, they said she might have died from the extreme heat in the car. Her body showed no clear signs of trauma. The car has tinted windows, one official said, so passersby were unlikely to notice the baby inside.

“Just a tragic, tragic incident,” said Prince George’s Deputy Police Chief Gary Cunningham.

D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier called it “a horrific crime.”

Phillips, a vice officer who joined the D.C. police force in 2003, was arrested by Prince George’s police Friday and charged with first-degree murder. A family member said Phillips, who is being held without bond, lived in the county’s Temple Hills area with his wife of 13 years and their 12-year-old daughter.

Wright, an aspiring Prince George’s sheriff’s deputy, also lived in Temple Hills. She filed a court petition in February seeking to have Phillips declared the father of her daughter, Jaylin Wright, who was born June 6, 2010. She also asked the court to order Phillips to make child support payments and provide health insurance for Jaylin.

Wright was found dead Thursday on the ground in Oxon Run Spring Valley Park, about a mile from Phillips’s home, authorities said. They said Jaylin was found elsewhere in the park, dead in a car seat in Wright’s green 2008 Saturn Vue.

Phillips has been charged in Wright’s slaying, but authorities are awaiting the autopsy results on Jaylin before deciding whether to charge him in her death.

Two county police officials familiar with the case, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is continuing, said Wright told a friend that she planned to meet with Phillips on Monday to discuss what would happen Tuesday at a scheduled court hearing in the paternity matter.

Detectives have obtained surveillance video showing Phillips and Wright arriving a few minutes apart Monday in a parking lot of the Hillcrest Heights Community Center, at the edge of Oxon Run Spring Valley Park, the officials said.

After Wright failed to return from the meeting, her mother alerted authorities that she was missing, police said. On Tuesday, Phillips showed up for the paternity hearing in Prince George’s Family Court and agreed to take a DNA test, said Paula Tolson, a spokeswoman for the Maryland Department of Human Resources.