JASPERA RAINEY
ST. JOSEPH, Mo. (AP) – The Buchanan County prosecutor’s office has filed an upgraded child abuse charge against a mother whose toddler daughter died from head injuries.
Twenty-eight-year-old Jaspera Rainey initially was charged with endangerment. The St. Joseph News-Press reports that prosecutors added the abuse charge Friday.
Authorities allege that Rainey knowingly caused head trauma to her 23-month-old daughter, Jaliyah Blackmon.
Emergency responders found the girl dead in August in the St. Joseph apartment where Rainey lived with co-defendant Patrick Middlebrook. He is charged with first-degree endangering the welfare of a child. Court records said the girl suffered multiple injuries to the head and body.
Rainey and Middlebrook are jailed in the case. Neither of their attorneys immediately returned phone messages from The Associated Press.