Police Question Father In Death Of Missing Boy
(Updated: October 8, 2010 4:16 p.m.)
CHICAGO (WBBM) - A 14-month-old boy whose body was pulled from Lake Michigan Thursday died of strangulation, the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office tells CBS 2.
Police continue to question the boy's father, days after the father allegedly took him from his South Side home.
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A boater spotted the boy floating not far from La Rabida Children's Hospital near East 65th Street and the lake at about 2 p.m Thursday.
Paramedics rushed Dontrell Johnson to the University of Chicago Comer Children's Hospital but doctors weren't able to revive him. He was pronounced dead at 3:45 p.m., hospital spokesman John Easton said.
Officials couldn't say how the boy ended up in the lake or how long he was there before the boater spotted him.
Dontrell's 30-year-old father was picked up by police Wednesday and remains in custody.
The father picked up Dontrell on Monday at the home of the child's mother in the 9400 block of South Harvard Avenue in the Princeton Park housing complex for a several day visitation, police said.
On Wednesday, the boy's mother, Regina Quarles, contacted police after the father, her ex-boyfriend, began calling her, threatening to kill himself and the child, police said.
After police arrested the man, he wouldn't say where the boy was, police said.
They added that the man's behavior may have been triggered by a domestic dispute with Quarles, who had refused her ex-boyfriend's request to get together.
When police could not find the child, they issued an alert Thursday morning, appealing to the public for help.
An autopsy was performed Friday. The boy's death was classified as a homicide.
CBS 2's Mai Martinez contributed to this report.
