The Auburn parents whom the King County Prosecutor last week charged with causing the death of their 4-month-old daughter will each be arraigned at 9 a.m., Monday, July 11 in courtroom GA of the Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent.
On June 29, the prosecutor filed second-degree murder charges against Lee Mason Dupay, 34, and Mariah Leshay Phillips, 24.
Dupay and Phillips are in King County jail on $1 million bail.
Auburn Police found the 4-month-old girl early in the morning of June 23 under a pink blanket, dead, showing obvious signs of severe malnourishment, in addition to a protruding rib cage and injuries under her chin.
Auburn police arrested Dupay and Phillips the next day and booked them into the SCORE Jail. Detectives later took protective custody of the couple’s 2-year-old twin daughters and turned them over to Child Protective Services.
Here is a summary of what happened, taken from the Auburn Police Department’s Certification for Determination of Probable Cause, which forms the basis of the prosecutor’s case.
Valley Com dispatched police to a Garden Apartments unit in the 1400 block of 17th Street Southeast at about 5:45 a.m. Thursday, where they found a baby under a blanket on a mattress, not breathing and cold to the touch. Although 911 had directed the parents to begin and continue CPR until police and the Valley Regional Fire Authority arrived, when firefighters got there they soon pronounced the baby dead.
Questioned about marks found on the baby’s body, Phillips told investigators that the marks on the chin and lips had begun as a small rash that got worse over time. Although she claimed that a public health nurse on an earlier occasion had examined the baby at her (Phillip’s) request, and informed her that the rash was nothing to be concerned about, later investigation showed that no nurse had ever looked at the injury.
According to the police report: “The child appeared to be extremely malnourished, as her rib cage was clearly visible, along with the separation line of her stomach muscles, and her stomach was distended. The child’s legs contained no ‘baby fat …’ and the muscles and bones were clearly visible. ‘Baby fat’ typically located on an infant’s thighs and arms were absent and replaced with sagging skin.”
According to the police report, the baby was missing multiple layers of skin below her chin and around her lips. There was an obvious protrusion on her upper left rib cage from an unknown cause.
A Medical Examiner’s Office autopsy performed last Friday found the baby had been extremely malnourished. The autopsy also found acute, multiple rib fractures on the baby’s left side, and that the protrusion on the left side of her rib cage was an abscess associated with the fractures. According to the report, the baby had been “the victim of obvious neglect and inflicted physical injury.”
After police arrested the couple, according to the report, Phillips recalled that in one incident while Dupay was chasing her (Phillips) around the house, he stepped on the baby who was lying on the bed, at which time she noticed the rib injury. She also said that the lesions on the baby’s lips and under her chin had been made when Lee had bitten her.
According to the report, Phillips described the assault as, “Lee suspending (the baby) in the air with his mouth for several minutes, his top teeth embedded into her lips and his bottom teeth into her chin.”
According to the police report, in spite of all the baby’s injuries, Phillips continued to believe that whatever she was suffering from, it was not urgent, and she refused to acknowledge the malnourishment.
