D.C. police arrested a Southeast Washington man yesterday and charged him with felony murder in the death of a 22-month-old girl who was found unconscious in his apartment Saturday.
Gregory Whitehead, 21, was arrested at 4:30 p.m. by authorities investigating the death of Mianni Manasya Goodine. The girl was the half sister of Whitehead's 3-month-old daughter, Mi-Yonna. The D.C. medical examiner's office determined that Mianni died as the result of abdominal trauma, authorities said.
Mianni Manasya Goodine would have turned 2 in March.
(Family Photo)
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Officers were called to Whitehead's apartment in the 2600 block of Birney Place SE about 1:15 p.m. Saturday to investigate a report of an unconscious person. Authorities took the girl to Children's Hospital, where she was pronounced dead at 1:52 p.m.
The girl's mother, Ollie Goodine, 25, said in a telephone interview yesterday that she had dropped off Mianni at Whitehead's apartment Wednesday. Mi-Yonna was also at the apartment.
Goodine said she had planned to pick up the girl Friday but got into a traffic accident that night and wound up staying with a friend. She called Whitehead on Friday night to check on Mianni.
"It was the first time I let her go over there," said Goodine, who said she usually cared for Mianni at her apartment in the 100 block of K Street NW.
"I heard her laughing and playing and stuff," she said. She told Whitehead that she would pick up Mianni the next day to take her to a relative's house.
Goodine, who had trouble sleeping after the car accident, said she was awakened Saturday by a phone call from Whitehead, who told her that Mianni had been taken to Children's Hospital because she had stopped breathing.
She said Whitehead told her that he had fed Mianni breakfast that morning, given her a bath and, because she still seemed sleepy, put her back to bed.
Later, when he went to check on Mianni, "he noticed she wasn't breathing, and he started doing CPR," Goodine said.
Goodine said that when she saw her daughter at the hospital, "she looked like she was sleeping."
Mianni would have turned 2 in March, Goodine said.
The 3-month-old girl has been removed from the apartment and is with relatives, according to Mindy Good, a spokeswoman for the city's Child and Family Services Agency.
The agency is involved in the case because of Mianni's death and concerns about the younger child.
Good said the mother was involved in another agency case four or five years ago.
Her two older children -- twins, now 6 -- were removed from her care after reports of abuse, Good said. "They have been in a stable placement for several years, outside of the mother's home," she said.
Since then, the agency has been focusing on the welfare of the two older children and working out the legalities of their permanent situation, Good said.
Caseworkers did not know that the mother had more children, and the agency had received no reports of problems, she said.
Goodine acknowledged yesterday that her two older children had been taken from her, but she said she did not neglect or abuse them.
"The house I lived in was not fit for kids," she said. "It was pretty messed up in there."
Staff writer Del Quentin Wilber contributed to this report.
