Dad who killed 2-year-old son took kids from Mom without permission (Noblesville, Indiana)

We posted on this case earlier today, and wondered whether this involved a custody/visitation angle. Here we see it (obliquely) confirmed, when the mother says that dad MICAH HARRISON took the kids "without permission." That suggests that the mother had physical custody and that the father took the kids from Alabama up to Indiana without notifiying her.

Notice that daddy has a criminal record of assault and drugs use. It also sounds like he is seriously mentally ill/delusional, based on what his own mother says. Wonder what custody/visitation rights this father managed to get despite all this....

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2260324/Micah-Harrison-Family-trip-ends-father-fatally-stabbing-year-son-head.html

'I killed my poor little baby... just shoot me, please': Sobbing father's plea to judge after 'fatally stabbing son, 2, in the head'

By Daily Mail Reporter

PUBLISHED: 14:26 EST, 10 January 2013 | UPDATED: 17:31 EST, 10 January 2013

A father accused of stabbing his two-year-old son in the head appeared in court today and sobbed to the judge: 'I shouldn't have any rights. Just shoot me, please. I killed my poor little baby.'

Micah Harrison, 30, from Robertsdale, Alabama, was arrested on Wednesday after police were called to an apartment in Noblesville, Indiana.

When they arrived they found his son Michael bleeding from multiple stab wounds.

He was pronounced dead at the scene and Harrison was charged with murder.

In court today, he banged his head on a table and asked the central Indiana judge for a rope to kill himself.

When Magistrate David Najjar read him his rights, Harrison said: 'What about a right to a rope?'

Najjar entered a not guilty plea on Harrison's behalf and appointed an attorney for him.

He also ordered Harrison held without bond pending a March 12 trial date. A jail officer said Harrison already was on suicide watch before the court hearing.

Neighbors told the Indy Star they saw a number of children outside playing on Wednesday afternoon on snow piles.

They said they saw a little boy fall, and a man shout at him and spank him before taking him inside.

It was soon after that police received a call to say a two-year-old had been stabbed in the head with a knife.

Police found three stab wounds on the toddler’s body – one in the center of his chest, one near the top of the chest and one in the forehead.

Police also found a nail-pulling tool on top of a dresser in the living room, the police document states. The shape of the tool is consistent with the wound on the child’s forehead.

According to the Indy Star, Harrison's mother told police her son thought that 'someone or something was trying to kill him' and that he attacked a closet door with the claw hammer shortly before he stabbed his son.

Pamela Harrison said she saw her son run into the room where the two-year-old was playing and when she went in she said she saw her son stab the toddler two or three times with a kitchen knife.

There were several people in the apartment at the time and Harrison's two daughters were seen being carried from the apartment by police shortly after the incident.

Harrison and his children were in Indiana on a day trip visiting relatives.

Neighbor Alex Carstens said of the arrest: '[Harrison] was just laying there on the ground, and the cops had a gun to him saying, "Put your hands up".'

He had blood on his hands when police arrived. Harrison has a litany of arrests and charges in Baldwin County in Alabama, including assault, unlawful possession of a controlled substance, unpaid traffic tickets and permitting dogs to run at large.

The child’s mother Megan C. Kelley was not with the family when it happened and told police Harrison took the children without permission.

A man who answered her phone number Thursday said she was too grief-stricken to talk and that she was trying to get custody of her two young daughters and her son's body.