Aunt Charged In Death Of 1-Year-Old

Aunt Charged In Death Of 1-Year-Old

November 13, 2008

MILWAUKEE -- Charges were filed in the beating death of a 1-year-old Milwaukee boy Thursday.

One-year-old Christopher Thomas Jr.'s aunt, Crystal Keith, was charged with reckless homicide and physical abuse of a child and made her initial appearance in court Thursday.

According to the criminal complaint, on Monday, Thomas was crying and would not stop so Keith slapped him with an open hand to the face.

"Ten minutes later, Christopher Thomas went unconscious and his eyes rolled back to the side and he stopped breathing," the complaint said.

Thomas was taken to Children's Hospital, where police said the doctor indicated that she believed the 1-year-old also had "potentially extreme brain damage from child abuse."

The 1-year-old and his sister were permanently placed with Keith in June after being removed from their mother's house. Police said the children were abused there as well.

Keith told police that the children were behaving themselves and things went well at first. However, recently Thomas began to cry a lot so Keith began hitting the child.

Authorities said Keith told them she did try to revive the child and called her sister to tell her she thought she had killed the 1-year-old. Keith told police her husband never saw the abuse.

Police said Thomas' 2-year-old sister was also abused and is still in the hospital.

Thomas' sister "had a large number of injuries which appeared to be the result of severe abuse and neglect," police said. The injuries included burns, broken bones and there were signs of nutritional and medical neglect.