Police say 2-month-old Kailiah Bruno died at the hands of her parents: that her father, 19-year-old Kaseem Bruno, wrapped a fan cord around her neck and strangled her to death one April morning.
Bruno has been charged with first-degree murder. He appeared briefly in Superior Court Monday to be advised of his rights and remains in Bureau of Corrections’ custody on $2 million bail.
A dropout who never advanced beyond the eighth grade, Bruno joked and laughed with his attorney before the hearing.
Kailiah’s 18-year-old mother, Lilia Roumo, has been charged with involuntary manslaughter in her daughter’s death and also remains in BOC custody.
She appeared in Magistrate Court earlier Monday, also to be advised of her rights. She had been on suicide watch in the mental ward of Schneider Regional Medical Center for a time since she and Bruno were arrested on May 8.
According to the affidavit that led judges to find probable cause to hold both of them, police responded to a call from Darna Todman, Bruno’s mother, at Bovoni public housing late in the morning of April 18.
When they arrived, Kailiah had been dead for at least two hours and showed marks on her tiny neck and other signs of strangulation, according to VIPD Detective Cherese Thomas.
Bruno refused to talk to police at the time, except to say that Roumo had killed Kailiah.
Roumo, however, gave two statements – one to police at the scene and one later after she was separated from Bruno.
At first she told police that she fell back asleep after feeding Kailiah that morning at 5 a.m. When she woke up to feed her again at 7 a.m., the baby was not breathing. Roumo said she and Bruno performed CPR for two hours until they observed milk coming from the baby’s nose and mouth.
She said they did not call 911 because they had no phone, and said they did not alert neighbors because they did not get along with them. They wrapped Kailiah’s stiffening body in a towel and took her to Bruno’s mother, who called 911.
At the hospital two days later, however, Roumo told a different story to Sgt. Roslyn Bedminster of the VIPD Domestic Violence Unit – a unit she was no stranger to after filing recent complaints against Bruno for abuse.
In Roumo’s revised statement, she said she tried to quiet Kailiah, who was crying during the night of April 16 and morning of April 17, until Bruno took the baby from her arms and placed her on a small bed in their bedroom. There, Bruno “removed a cord from a fan and wrapped the cord around Kailiah Bruno’s neck twice and began choking her,” the affidavit says.
Roumo said Bruno had tried to quiet Kailiah because “she was crying too loud and because he was avoiding being served court documents.”
When he stopped choking her, Kailiah gasped and breathed again and lived through the next day, during which time Roumo said she noticed bruising on her neck.
“After Mr. Bruno choked the infant, Kailiah Bruno would cry anytime she moved her head and was not sucking and feeding like normal,” the affidavit says.
After feeding her at 5 a.m. on Sunday, April 18, and waking up at 7 a.m. to find her baby not breathing — as she originally told police — Roumo said she and Bruno tried CPR until Kailiah’s “feet turned purple and she was turning stiff.”
When she finally convinced Bruno to seek help, they took the dead infant to his mother, who called police.
V.I. Medical Examiner Francisco Landron said Kailiah died of “asphyxiation by means of ligature strangulation” and “not accidental or by natural causes,” according to the court documents.
Roumo is being held on a $250,000 bail.
Bruno is scheduled to appear for a bail hearing at noon Wednesday and is scheduled to be arraigned May 20.
