WAUKEGAN, Ill., Nov. 30 (UPI) -- Investigators on Friday examined the body of an infant exhumed because of doubts he died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.
Audrea Boughton, 20, of North Chicago, is under investigation for both the 1999 death of her son, Darrius Richardson, and the January death of her 6-week-old daughter, Dynasty Boughton.
Lake County authorities this week filed murder charges against Boughton, who is pregnant with her third child, in Darrius' death after X-rays were re-examined and fractures initially overlooked were spotted.
Investigators say Boughton told them she hugged Darrius to her chest until he stopped crying and moving and then laid him down in soft bedding. Darrius died at Great Lakes Naval Training Center, where Boughton's mother was stationed at the time.
The case was reopened after Dynasty was pronounced dead at Children's Hospital in Milwaukee. The Milwaukee coroner ruled the death "sudden" and "unexpected."
On Jan. 25, police were called to the home of Boughton's mother in Zion where they found Dynasty face down in her crib and unresponsive.
"We were immediately suspicious," Zion police Lt. Dwight Ower told Friday's Chicago Tribune. "We had one mother and two dead babies and knew that somehow they were connected."
Boughton is scheduled to appear in court Dec. 19.
