FAYETTEVILLE — The girlfriend of a dead toddler’s father has been arrested in the boy’s death.
Amber Drain, 22, of Fayetteville was arrested Thursday in connection with capital murder.
Police say Drain killed Dominic Doss, 2, on July 18.
Police and paramedics went to the apartment in south Fayetteville that morning to check on a boy who was not breathing. Dominic was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Police launched an investigation after finding suspicious bruising on Dominic’s body, according to a preliminary arrest report.
A state medical examiner’s report indicated the child suffered two skull fractures and a swollen brain.
Interviews with family and neighbors led police to Drain. She was interviewed a second time Thursday after the medical examiner’s report was completed.
Drain told a detective she slapped Dominic, then picked him up by the ankles and struck his head against a bedroom floor, because he wouldn’t stop crying, according to the arrest report.
Dominic was unconscious, so Drain went next door to use a phone to call 911, but the neighbor didn’t answer the door, according to the report. She moved Dominic into his bed, then went to sleep for several hours, according tothe report.
Drain sent Dominic’s 6-year-old sister into his room to wake him up around 10:30 a.m., and the sister found him unresponsive, according to the report. Drain then returned to the neighbor’s house to call911, wrote Detective David Williams.
Dominic was one of four children in the house during the incident, according to police. His parents, Brandon Doss and Amy Grub, weren’t at home when police and paramedics arrived, said Lt. Jamie Fields.
Dominic didn’t die immediately, but over several hours as swelling in his brain limited his breathing, according to the state medical examiner’s report.
Drain’s home address is listed in the arrest report. Police wouldn’t say Thursday whether either of the child’s parents lived there, or how all the children were related.
The investigation will continue, Fields said.
A child-fatality notice by the Arkansas Department of Human Services indicates that the agency checked on Dominic twice regarding abuse complaints, once in April 2009 and again in September. Both claims are listed as unsubstantiated.
Details of those reports are confidential and exempt from the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act, said BillSadler, a 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 bond hearing today, Duell said.
Bond can be denied in capital murder cases.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 9 on 07/30/2010