Man Charged With Stabbing 1-Year-Old Son To Death
BALTIMORE (WJZ)—A 1-year-old child is stabbed to death inside a Southwest Baltimore home.
Weijia Jiang reports the baby's father is now charged with murder.
A frantic 911 call led police to the 2700-block of West Baltimore's Riggs Avenue on Wednesday morning.
"For a report of an abduction. A woman called the police. She couldn't find her 1 year baby son," said Det. Jeremy Silbert, Baltimore City Police.
After searching the house, officers found the baby -- named Dalyrie McFadden-- in the basement in a pool of blood--beaten, stabbed in the neck and wrapped up in deflated air mattress.
He had just turned 1 the day before.
Now the boy's father, 25-year-old Hari Close, faces several charges, including first-degree murder.
"The mother is supposed to die before kids but now she got to bury her baby," said a neighbor.
At this point police are still working on a motive. Neighbors say they can't imagine what went wrong. They say the couple is new to the area, and by all outward appearances everything seemed to be fine.
"Only thing you see is the mother and her two children walking up and down the street, going to the store, and going back in to the house," said a neighbor.
Court records show the baby's mother, Jennifer McFadden, sued Close in March for paternity.
On his Facebook page, Close says he attended UMES and that's he's a male model, hoping to be the world's top supermodel.
"You never know what type of pressure they under," said Anderson Cooper, neighbor. "The economy is off the chains. You just never know what drives a person to do such evil and ugly things like that, but I hope the truth comes out."
Police say Close led them to several pieces of evidence, including a bloody kitchen knife.
Police say McFadden told them Close had tried to choke the baby before, causing hemorrhaging and that he bit the baby's ear in April.
Close is being held at Central Booking in downtown Baltimore.
