A couple living in a Batesville motel room face charges of endangering the welfare of a minor and possession of drug paraphernalia after finding their 9-month-old daughter dead in the room Saturday afternoon.
Bobby Dewayen Gipson, 43, of Newport, and Lisa Frances Lilly, 31, of Pearl River, La., called police to the Super 8 Motel on St. Louis Street in Batesville to report their daughter, Gracie Susan Gipson, was not breathing.
Sgt. Shane Hightower of the Batesville Police Department said in an arrest affidavit filed Monday in Independence County Circuit Court that when he entered Room 214, he saw medical personnel attending to the infant. He said paramedics told him the youngster had been dead for "some time."
Hightower reported the room was in "complete disarray" and said he found several bottles of prescription and over-the-counter medication in the bathroom and on a nightstand near the bed. Hightower also found numerous loose pills on the floor along with a dirty diaper, a pizza box and cans of opened and unopened baby food.
The officer said he located an empty bottle of alcohol on top of the motel room's air conditioner along with several cigarette butts.
Batesville police detective Lt. Kyle Williford said authorities found the baby at about 2:45 p.m. Saturday. He said the infant was lying on her back at the foot of the bed, and he reported seeing a large hematoma-type injury on the right side of her head.
Williford said he questioned Gipson and Lilly about what happened.
"They were confused" and could not tell officers about the child's death, he said.
Williford said Gipson has been charged before with drug violations, and Lilly had her other children removed from her home by the state Department of Human Services because of drug use.
Lilly told Williford that she gave her daughter children's Dimetapp on Friday night because of a cough, along with prescribed medication for the baby. Williford said the label on the cough medicine bottle found in the room specified it should not be given to children younger than 6 years old.
Authorities also found an eyeglass case in the hotel bathroom that contained two glass "smoking devices commonly used to ingest methamphetamine with burnt residue inside them," Williford said.
An investigator ran a test that determined the residue tested positive for methamphetamine, according to reports.
After the parents were arrested, they were taken to the White River Medical Center in Batesville where blood and urine samples were taken from each. While at the hospital waiting to get his blood drawn, Gipson asked a hospital security officer about sudden infant death syndrome, Hightower said in his affidavit.
"Is SIDS where you are asleep and roll over on a baby and the baby dies?" Gipson asked the security officer, according to Hightower's arrest affidavit.
The officer explained sudden infant death syndrome and told Gipson he "probably didn't want to know" what it was called when someone suffocates a baby by rolling over on it.
"Murder," Gipson replied, according to Hightower's affidavit.
Later, he asked if an autopsy revealed if the baby had something in her throat and said Lilly "could possibly have given her a piece of waffle to eat," according to reports.
The two were arraigned Tuesday in Independence County Circuit Court.
State Desk on 05/31/2017