A Chicago father was charged with the murder of his 2-month-old son after detectives say he placed the baby in the stroller and passed him off to his mother as if he was napping when he was actually dead.
Chicago Police say Anthony Evans, 23, was charged last week with one felony count of “murder – strong probability death/injure” in connection with the death of 2-month-old Kayson Flowers back in April.
Investigators say baby Kayson was in Evans’ care that month. When Evans returned his son to the care of his mother, Kayla Flowers, on April 28, he allegedly positioned the child in his stroller, then passed him to Kayla as if he was still alive.
Prosecutors say he told Kayla that Kayson had been “sleeping for a long time,” according to CBS News, when the baby had actually been dead for several hours.
When Kayla got home, she said she discovered Kayson wasn’t breathing and immediately took him to a hospital, but by the time she got there, doctors told her it was too late to save him.
“Me, not thinking anything of it, because it was raining, I just took my baby to the house, because I didn’t want my child to get sick. So, when I went in the house, I uncovered the stroller in the car seat, my baby was lifeless,” Kayla told WLS in May.
The Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled Kayson’s death a homicide and discovered he died from multiple injuries consistent with child abuse, including a brain bleed and blunt force trauma.
Kayla and her family sought the help of their local pastor, Roseland Christian Ministries Executive Director Joe Huizenga, and together, they offered a $7,500 reward for information that would lead to an arrest.
Huizenga recalled the day Flowers called him distraught about her child’s death.
“My baby’s dead, they killed my baby, he’s black and blue!” Huizenga told the Chicago Sun-Times in May.
At that time, the pastor had already suspected Kayson’s father was somehow connected to the infant’s death.
“Somebody related to that father knows what happened,” Huizenga said. “He brought a dead baby, his dead baby, to the mother and tried to pass it off as if she was the one who committed the crime. Somebody knows what happened.”
Authorities finally arrested Evans on Nov. 10, nearly six months after his child’s death.
Prosecutors learned that when Evans found out Flowers was pregnant, he wanted her to get an abortion. Court records also reveal that Evans punched Flowers in the stomach in February and sent her to the hospital, just days after Kayson was born.
During his first court appearance last week, Evans told the court that a demon made him kill the boy.
In a recent Facebook post, Flowers said she was grateful after the arrest was made.
“Me and my son finally got our justice. No words can explain how grateful 😇 I am,” Flowers wrote in a video post. “This mean so much to me. My son didn’t get a chance to grow up with his family due to his father taking my son’s life.”
