FAYETTEVILLE — The girlfriend of a dead toddler’s father has been arrested in the boy’s death.
Amber Drain, 22, of 401 W. 24th St., Apt. 25, Fayetteville, was arrested Thursday in connection with capital murder.
Police say Drain killed Dominick Doss, 2, on July 18.
Police and paramedics went to the apartment in south Fayetteville that morning to check on a boy who wasn’t breathing. Dominick’s was taken to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Police launched an investigation after finding suspicious bruising on Dominick’s body, according to a preliminary arrest report.
A state medical examiner’s report indicated Dominick suffered two skull fractures and a swollen brain.
Interviews with family and neighbors led police to interview Drain. She was interviewed again Thursday after the medical examiner’s report was completed.
Drain told a detective she slapped Dominick, then picked him up by the ankles and struck his head against a bedroom floor, because Dominick wouldn’t stop crying around 6:30 that morning, according to the arrest report.
Dominick was unconscious, so Drain went next door to borrow a phone and call 911, but the neighbor didn’t answer the door, according to the report. She moved Dominick into his bed, then went to sleep for several hours, according to the report.
Drain sent Dominick’s 6-year-old sister into his room to wake him around 10:30 a.m., and the sister found him unresponsive, according to the report. Drain then returned to the neighbor’s house to call 911, wrote Detective David Williams.
Dominick was one of four children in the house during the incident, according to police. Dominick’s parents, Brandon Doss and Amy Grub, weren’t at home when police and paramedics arrived, said Lt. Jamie Fields of the Investigations Division.
The investigation continues, and it’s too early to say if more arrests will be made in the case, Fields said.
A child-fatality notice published by the Arkansas Department of Human Services indicates the agency checked on Dominick twice in regard to abuse complaints, once in April 2009 and again in September 2009. Both claims are listed as unsubstantiated.
Details of those reports are confidential and exempt from the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act, said Bill Sadler, spokesman for the Arkansas State Police. The state police’s Crimes Against Children Division assists the Department of Human Services in investigating abuse complaints.
Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Charles Duell has been assigned to the case. Drain will have a hearing this morning to decide if a bond amount will be set, Duell said.
Bond can be denied in capital murder cases.
Dominick didn’t die immediately, but over several hours as swelling in his brain limited his breathing, according to the state medical examiner’s report.
The apartment is listed as Drain’s home address in the arrest report. Police wouldn’t say Thursday whether either of Dominick’s parents lived there, or how all the children were related.