Dad Charged With Murdering Girl, 2, Found Bitten
FLINT (WWJ/AP) - Authorities filed murder, torture and child abuse charges Wednesday against a Flint man whose 2-year-old daughter's body was found with five human bite marks and a lacerated liver.
Donovan L. Haynes, 20, was being held in the Genesee County jail after his daughter, Tiarra Woodward, was found not breathing in their Flint Township home on Sunday. She was pronounced dead at a hospital.
According to police, Haynes said he bit his daughter in the leg because she wet the bed.
Some bite marks were fresh while others appeared to be a few days old, township police Chief George Sippert told The Flint Journal. He said the bites appeared to be from an adult.
In announcing the charges, county Prosecutor David Leyton said Tiarra died of bleeding from the lacerated liver.
"This poor girl suffered an inexcusable death," Leyton said in a news release. "I cannot imagine the fear and the agony she went through before she died."
Haynes was charged with first-degree murder, an open count of murder, first-degree child abuse and torture. The first-degree murder charge carries an automatic penalty of life in prison without parole, while the torture and open murder charges carry up to life, and the child abuse charge up to 15 years' imprisonment.
"My office will do everything it can to see that justice is served and the defendant is held accountable under the law," Leyton said.
It wasn't immediately clear Wednesday if Haynes has a lawyer. A phone message was left for a prosecutor's spokesman Wednesday evening, and no one answered the phone at the county jail.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
