Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Texas Mom Confessed to Slamming, Shaking 2-Month-Old Baby Girl: Cops

Episode Date: November 30, 2023

Clarissa Stewart confessed to shaking and slamming her 2-month-old daughter and searching the web for "Shaken Baby Syndrome" for hours before calling for help, according to court documents. Text messages show the mother may have been suffering from postpartum depression. The Law&Crime Network's Angenette Levy looks at the sad case in this episode of Crime Fix, a daily show that breaks down the biggest stories in crime.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this law and crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. A mom in Texas is accused of shaking her two-month-old baby and then slamming her on a table. And instead of calling for help, police say she searched the web for shaken baby syndrome for hours before calling 911. The allegation is absolutely unbelievable. Police in Abilene, Texas took Clarissa Nicole Stewart into custody Wednesday. The little baby died on November 15th. A Texas TV station reports text messages between Stewart and her husband showed signs that she may have been suffering from postpartum depression. One read, I want nothing to do with when you're off.

I can't stand her anymore. The second she cries, it throws me into a rage I didn't know I could have. Another stated, It's getting harder and harder to love her. Police say Stewart confessed to slamming her baby on a table and then waiting six hours to call for help. And get this, Stewart used to work with children, and she may still work with children, at the Abilene Independent School

District. Records show she was employed as an educational aide in 2020. Lawandcrime.com reached out to the district to check on her current employment status, but so far there's been no response. Right now, Stewart is being held on bail in jail. I'm Anjanette Levy. It's Thursday and this is Crime Fix, law and crime's rundown of the top stories for the day in crime. Now to a different type of crime involving a person who died but wasn't murdered. And we're going to warn you, it's pretty disgusting. Police in Phoenix say a hospital security guard was literally caught with his pants down in the morgue freezer with a 79-year-old woman's corpse. Randall Byrd faces five charges related to crimes against a dead person.

Phoenix police say it was part of his job as a security guard to actually take the bodies of patients who had passed away to the morgue. Back on October 24th, police say a Banner University Medical Center employee found Bird in the freezer and the dead woman's body was face down on a gurney. Police say the witness said Bird was sweating profusely, acting nervously, his zipper was down, and his duty belt was actually on top of the body bag. The witness said that Bird tried to offer an excuse that he had fainted and broke the zipper off the body bag. The witness said that Byrd tried to offer an excuse that he had fainted and broke the zipper off the body bag as he grabbed it while falling to the ground. The hospital issued a statement saying, quote, we are saddened and appalled by the alleged actions of an individual at Banner University Medical Center, Phoenix. It resulted in his arrest on

November 28th, 2023. Recently, Banner team members identified and reported concerning behavior of an employee in the hospital morgue. Banner initiated an internal investigation, filed a report with law enforcement, and terminated the employee. Police say Bird's DNA was actually found on the victim's body. He was arrested this week and posted bail. He could go to prison for a very long time if he's convicted. Well, up next, we have some body camera video out of DeLand, Florida in Volusia County that will just make you say, what? A woman's little girl walked into a bar looking for her mom. Her mom was accused of ditching her so she could go out and drink beer.

Where'd you walk from? I walked from my car over there. and drink beer. That little girl had walked into the bar in her jammies just after 2 a.m. She told police her mom said she'd be back in five minutes but never returned. She then took police to the car. More than four hours later, deputies found the girl's mom, Veronica Elliott. She said she had three beers with a friend and only meant to be gone 10 minutes. Police said Elliott was covered in dirt and slurring her words. She is charged with child neglect. She is free on bail. In Arizona, authorities say it was an on-duty tribal police officer that hit a woman and then took off.

45-year-old Josh Anderson is accused of not only killing 30 year old Iris Billy, but then going and notifying her next of kin, pretending he wasn't the one responsible for it. Anderson had been employed by the White Mountain Apache police for 20 years and was said to be well known among the residents of the Fort Apache reservation. Early Thanksgiving morning, police got a call that a woman had been hit by a car and they found Billy dead. Anderson himself responded to the scene. But when police noticed significant damage to Anderson's patrol car, they got suspicious. He was arrested the next day. The investigation has now been turned over to the FBI. We have some interesting news in the Long Island serial killer case. A news outlet on Long

Island is reporting that DNA found on the victims' bodies actually matches the DNA taken from the wife of Rex Horman, the man charged in the murders. Now you might be thinking, wait, didn't we already know that? We kind of did, since court documents said mitochondrial DNA found on hairs on the victims came back to Hureman's wife, Asa Ellerup. But Newsday has confirmed, quoting a source, that DNA was actually taken from Asa Ellerup when Hureman was arrested last summer. We didn't know that until now. It's not clear at this time whether Ellerup gave the sample voluntarily or whether law enforcement used a warrant to get her DNA. Retired NYPD Homicide Sergeant Joe Giacalone talked about what these DNA results mean for the case on his YouTube channel. It's probably just being treated as transfer evidence, right? If he, meaning Rex, transferred these women in the truck, which is to me still the most likely scenario.

Asa was in the truck. Her hair follicles are out on the seats or what have you, or it could be in the back. Easily transferred, right? So especially if somebody's wearing a jacket or something that's clingy. I always tell my students a good way to, you know, think about the transfers. If you have a cat, right, you always have your black pants on and

then your cat comes up to you and rubs up against you and they leave all the fur on you. All right. That's exactly what I think happened in this case. Asa Ellerup, of course, has long hair. So her hair could have been anywhere in the house or the truck and possibly been transferred onto one of the victims. And I know I have hair that's really long and I shed like a dog every day. There's hair all over the place. I reached out to Asa Ellerup's lawyer, Bob Macedonio, for a comment. And at the time of this recording, we have not yet heard back. Police have already said that Ellerup and her children were out of the country when the women were killed. Horman has pleaded not guilty to the murders of Amber Costello, Melissa Bartholomew, and Megan Waterman. He's the prime suspect in the murder of Maureen

Brainerd Barnes, a fourth woman. In Idaho, cameras will be allowed in the trial of Chad Daybell, the other half of the so-called doomsday cult duo. But there's a catch. In order to provide adequate access, the court is going to permit that the trial be broadcast while it occurs with certain restrictions. First, the court is going to be in charge of all equipment and the broadcasting of that. I'm not going to allow that to be conducted by any third parties.

This decision is a little bit surprising because Judge Boyce didn't allow cameras in the trial of Lori Vallow Daybell earlier this year. In that trial, the state and the defense didn't want cameras allowed, so only audio was made available to the public at the end of the day. But this time is a little different. Prosecutors didn't want cameras in court, but Chad Daybell does. The primary reason for Mr. Daybell requesting the cameras

is to allow his family to view the proceedings. They would like the opportunity to watch on TV and to see how the trial transpires. And those children that aren't going to be witnesses would like to be able to do that. In Idaho, it's completely up to the judge whether cameras are allowed in the courtroom or not. There's absolutely no wiggle room. Chad Daybell could get the death penalty if he's convicted of the murders of Lori Vallow Daybell's children, Tylee Ryan and J.J. Vallow, and his late wife, Tammy Daybell. Lori is serving three life sentences for their deaths.

Judge Boyce will issue a decision on where Chad Daybell's trial will be held. It was supposed to be held in Boise, Idaho. That's Ada County. But now prosecutors want it moved back to Fremont County. They don't think they're going to be able to seat a jury in Ada County because of the publicity over Lori's trial earlier this year. Another high profile case we've been following is that of former YouTube influencer turned accused child abuser Ruby Frankie. Well, guess what? She's soon going to be single. Her husband,

Kevin, wants a divorce. He filed a petition for divorce and a domestic relations injunction on Wednesday in Utah, and that's pretty common to file for one of those injunctions when you file for divorce. The injunction lays out rules for both parties. For example, they cannot harass each other, they can't cancel services that belong to the other, or change any insurance policies. Ruby Frankie started the YouTube channel 8 Passengers in 2015. It featured Kevin and all six of their children offering advice on everything from cooking to parenting to religion. Uploads stopped in 2022 and Ruby Frankie started working with business partner

Jodi Hildebrandt on a project called Connections Classroom, an alleged therapy company. In August of this year, police responded to Hildebrandt's home, where they found Franke's two youngest children emaciated and with signs that they had been tied up. Both Frankie and Hildebrandt were arrested and charged with aggravated child abuse. 49 years after a suspected victim of the scorecard killer was found in California, genetic genealogy has identified him. Othram Labs says the body found on a road in Orange County in September 1974 was Michael Ray Schlicht. Schlicht was from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Othram says they found relatives of Schlicht's who said they hadn't seen him since April of that year. Their DNA helped identify him. Othram says Schlicht is believed to be a victim of serial killer Randy Kraft. He was arrested in 1983 with the body of a dead man in the passenger seat of his car and a bottle of

sedatives. Kraft is on death row at San Quentin for the death of 16 people. There are 10 more he suspected of killing. Kraft was called the scorecard killer because he had a coded list of victims with him. Meanwhile, Schlick's family is getting a headstone for him after all of these years. It didn't take cops in Pennsylvania long to figure out who killed an elderly woman in her kitchen. Police found 85-year-old Margaret Seltman dead on Tuesday, and it appeared she'd been severely beaten. Her husband, 84-year-old Barton Seltman, said he didn't know what happened, but he was covered in blood. He eventually told paramedics that he hurt his wife during a fight over money for their cat's vet bills. Can you believe that? Barton told police

his wife grabbed a knife, so he hit her with a chair. Police believe he then used a glass candle jar to beat her to death. He's being held without bond on murder charges. A Florida man apparently stabbed a woman in the back in a Walgreens parking lot just because he felt like it. It happened around two in the afternoon on Sunday in Naples, Florida. Police say 34-year-old Kenneth Bryan approached the woman and she tried to walk away from him, but he caught up to her and stabbed her twice in the back. She also had a serration mark on her arm. Police say when they asked Brian why he did it, he said, because I wanted to. A serrated knife broken in half was

found at the scene. According to court records, Brian has a criminal record that dates back years with multiple charges of battery and assault. He'll be back in court in December on this latest charge of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon. And that's it for Crime Fix on this Thursday, November 30th, 2023. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy. Thanks so much for joining us. We'll see you back here tomorrow.