SHAWNEE, Okla. – Police and paramedics rushed Friday morning to a home on East Highland in Shawnee after a 911 call saying a 2-year-old girl was having trouble breathing.
“She’s breathing in and out maybe every 15 seconds. She’s breathing real hard,” said the 911 caller.
Police said Cashe Graham made the call.
He lived in the home with 2-year-old Jamie Murdock’s mother, Whitney Breslin. Officials said Graham was Breslin’s boyfriend.
“We just thought she was sleeping in a little late and, when we went to check on her, she was breathing real weird,” the caller told the 911 operator.
Police said Murdock was rushed to a Shawnee hospital where she was stabilized before being transferred to a metro hospital.
She died at the hospital Saturday afternoon, unable to overcome her injuries.
“Bleeding and swelling of the brain, that was the main thing. She also had a bruise on her chin and a bruise in the lower abdomen,” said Detective Sergeant Jason Crouch with the Shawnee Police Department.
Crouch said Breslin and Graham denied hurting the child and blamed the injuries on her sleepwalking, saying they had even taken steps to childproof the home and prevent this.
“Putting like rubber on the corners of the desks, and the cabinets and the windowsills. You know, that was something that was odd in this thing, you know, they were actually trying to childproof the home,” Crouch said.
But, police said doctors told them there is no way Murdock could have caused the injuries herself.
“It was some kind of an assault or abuse. Yeah, the only way it can be explained is somebody did that to her,” Crouch said.
In the probable cause affidavit, police also noted something odd about the behavior of the little girl’s mother, saying “I noticed Whitney sounding like she was crying. While at the ER, Whitney would appear to cry but never shed any tears.”
“They seemed to be really nice,” said Harold Beasley, who lives next door to the family. “I can’t believe that. She seemed like a good mother.”
Police said it’s difficult at this point in time to pinpoint exactly who caused the injuries.
“Neither one of them are coming off of their story, saying that they understand how bad it looks but that they didn’t do it. Well, somebody did it. One of them did it. Either one of them did it and the other’s covering for them, or vice versa or they both were a part of it. But, they’re both guilty,” Crouch said.
Police also said Murdock tested positive for marijuana at the hospital.
They tell us secondhand smoke would not cause that, the child would have had to ingest the drug.
Both Breslin and Graham were arrested Tuesday afternoon for first-degree murder.
