Crime & Safety
Mom's Boyfriend Charged in Death of 19-Month-Old Cal City Girl
Ameriah Roberson died of a head injury and her body was dumped in an abandoned grain elevator in Riverdale.
Police have charged a man in connection with the death of a 19-month-old Calumet City girl who was reported missing Sunday — but found later that day dead in an abandoned grain elevator.
Ameriah Roberson was being babysat by her mother's boyfriend, James Harris, 23, at a home on Chicago's South Side Sunday. He told the girl's mother, 23-year-old Jocelyn Roberson, that he looked away and she was gone, her grandmother, Bernadette Madison, told the Chicago Sun-Times.
NBC Chicago reports that the boyfriend left the girl unattended in her car seat near 35th and Rhodes Avenue.
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"Yesterday, when things began to unravel, I even noticed ... there were some loopholes in his story," Madison said.
"Who would do something to a defenseless baby?" Madison said. "If there was a problem, if there was crying, this individual has my number, you've been to my home on numerous occasions ... this did not have to be."
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Investigators have not said how they believe Harris killed the child.
The Cook County Medical Examiner said the child died of a "closed-wound head injury." The body was found at about 3:25 p.m. Sunday. She was pronounced dead at the scene near the 14000 block of South Normal Avenue in Riverdale at about 7 p.m.
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