A Georgia couple has been arrested and charged with murder after their 4-week-old infant died from alcohol poisoning, according to authorities.
Sydnei Dunn, 24, and her 25-year-old husband, Marquis Colvin, were apprehended last Thursday, which was the day the child died in Atlanta.
Doctors said the amount of alcohol found in the newborn’s system was more than four times the legal limit for an adult, according to a sheriff’s statement.
The Paulding County Sheriff’s Office said staff at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta had called detectives after the baby was brought to the hospital unresponsive and the details that the parents gave “did not make sense.”
Initially, the child’s mother, Dunn, told investigators that she had consumed a lot of alcohol the day prior, and the child must have been poisoned by alcohol from her during breastfeeding, the sheriff’s office said in a news release. Dunn later claimed that her husband had put alcohol in the child’s bottle, according to the statement.
Dunn was arrested and charged with malice murder and second-degree murder, first-degree cruelty to children, reckless conduct, and a misdemeanor, NBC News reported.
The child’s father, Colvin, faces the same charges as his wife in addition to possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and parole violation.
Both are being held without bond pending a court appearance.
