Police in Virginia have arrested a babysitter who they say left an 11-month-old girl and a small dog to bake to death inside a hot car for six hours — before the infant’s body was brought to a hospital in a black trash bag.
Kristen Graham, 40, from Seaford, was taken into custody Tuesday and charged with felony child neglect and misdemeanor animal cruelty, York-Poquoson Sheriff Ron Montgomery announced at a press conference Tuesday.
Montgomery said that Graham’s top charge could be upgraded to homicide, depending on the results of the baby’s autopsy.
The youngster has been identified by law enforcement officials and family members as Myrical Eunik Wicker.
The investigation into the hot-car deaths began unfolding Tuesday afternoon, when cops were called to a hospital in Newport News where an elderly man had arrived saying he had a dead baby in his car.
Medical workers followed the man outside and saw a black garbage bag in his car containing a child’s lifeless body.
Detectives later contacted Graham, baby Myrical’s caregiver, and interviewed her.
At the time of the baby’s death, Graham had been looking after her for about 2 days. Montgomery said that the woman often babysat the tot, who was born in Oct. 2022 to 17-year-old Arianna Wicker.
Around 1 a.m. Tuesday, Graham got a call from a friend who asked her to bring her a pack of cigarettes, the sheriff said. The friend had been caring for an elderly person in Newport News and could not leave the house to do her own shopping.
“So the 11-month-old child was put in the back of the vehicle along with a small dog and transported to Newport News where they went to a 7-Eleven, purchased cigarettes and a bottle of apple juice,” said Montgomery.
Graham then drove to the friend’s house and stayed there for some time.
Around 8 a.m., she returned to her home on Seaford Road where, according to the sheriff’s office, she rolled up the windows in her car and left the baby and the dog inside.
Graham went to sleep and was awakened by a phone call about six hours later, between 2 p.m. and 2:30 p.m., the sheriff said.
She then went outside to check on the baby and found Myrical and the dog dead in the car. Temperatures in Seaford that day reached 88 degrees.
The baby was brought inside the house and for an unknown reason stuffed into a black trash bag, before 80-year-old Paul Kudlaty drove the lifeless infant to Bon Secours Mary Immaculate Hospital.
Kudlaty is not facing any charges in connection with the baby’s death, Montgomery said.
Deputies who later headed to Graham’s home to execute a search found the dog’s corpse in a bathtub, reported the station WTKR.
Graham told investigators that the last thing she remembered was pulling into her driveway and turning off the car engine, according to an arrest warrant.
The woman also allegedly said that she had taken the prescription nerve pain medication Gabapentin before getting behind the wheel to drive to Newport News.
Myrical’s maternal grandmother, Frances Spires, has launched a GoFundMe campaign to help her teenage daughter, Arianna Wicker, with her baby’s funeral expenses, saying that the teen mom had just gotten out of school and was unemployed.
Wicker’s roommate, Tennille Shields, told the news station WAVY that she was the one who broke the news of her baby’s death to her.
“She started screaming,” Shields recalled.
Baby Myrical’s biological father, Tyshaun Butts, wrote in the description of a separate online fundraiser that his daughter was “put in a trash bag by someone she viewed as family.”
The grieving young dad said his child “was full of life” and “her smile could light up the darkest room.”