Sioux Falls Police say they suspect that the death of a baby last week was not an accident. Authorities are looking for the girl’s father; he faces abuse and drug charges. Meantime officials are trying to understand what happened to the girl before emergency responders got to the baby’s home.
Kayleigh Joy Schumm was two and a half weeks old when she died last week at a Sioux Falls hospital. Authorities say it happened a day after the baby stopped breathing while home with her father.
Officer Sam Clemens says Michael Schumm says he was home with his daughter Wednesday morning when she gagged and vomited. Clemens says Schumm called the baby’s mom who was shopping with a friend.
“Eventually he was able to get ahold of the friend and told the friend to call mom and have mom call home,” Clemens says. “He told mom that the baby, at that point, was not breathing and that she needed to come home.”
Clemens says that happened at 11:20 in the morning, but no one called for the emergency until 11:44 a.m.
“So we had about a 24-minute lapse where he knew that there was something wrong with the baby, the baby wasn’t breathing, and he didn’t call 911, didn’t call for an ambulance,” Clemens says.
Clemens says the 20-year-old father faces abuse and neglect charges because he didn’t try to get help. He says police are waiting on autopsy results, because initial injuries indicate the baby’s death was not natural or accidental. The report could take weeks.
Authorities found marijuana in the home, so Michael Schumm faces drug charges in addition to abuse and neglect.