Christopher Michael Mayo, 20, of the 4100 block of Greenfish Drive on Naval Base Kitsap – Bangor, is being held in the Kitsap County Jail on $1 million bail in the shaking death of his three-month-old daughter named AnnaBelle.
Mayo was charged Nov. 3 in Kitsap County District with murder in the second degree, with a special allegation of an aggravating circumstance having to do with the victim’s particular vulnerability. Mayo was arrested Nov. 1 following a call to Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office from a concerned social worker at Mary Bridge Hospital in Tacoma.
According to charging documents, Mayo was watching the infant at the Greenfish Drive residence while his girlfriend, the child’s mother, attended a Halloween party in Seattle. Police say Mayo gave different accounts of what led to the girl’s death, but ultimately confessed to head-butting and shaking her after being frustrated by her crying. That confession followed a determination by a doctor that AnnaBelle’s traumatic injuries were the result of shaking.
Mayo told police that he put the baby down in a car seat and fell asleep for about 30 minutes. After being awoken by the crying baby, Mayo said he picked her up by her upper arm and shook her “very hard” for between a minute and a minute and a half.
“Christopher said (the baby) vomited all over his shirt and shorts,” according to a probable cause statement. “Christopher then placed her over his shoulder while walking in the living room and he tripped — stating, ‘She fell from my shoulder to the ground.’ Christopher emphasized that she’d hit the ground quite hard.”
Mayo allegedly told police he then picked up the baby and shook her again because she appeared unresponsive. Police say Mayo then laid the baby on a couch and went to the kitchen sink to run water for a bath. The probable cause statement said he came back and found the baby “completely unresponsive” with labored breathing with approximately 30 seconds between respirations.
“He stated her eyes were shut, she was ‘completely sprawled’ and she had turned pale, greenish and transparent,” according to court documents.
“For the next hour and a half he listened to her continue with labored breathing while, ‘Trying to cover up for it, make it look like nothing happened,'” according to the probable cause statement. “He cleaned up the vomit off the floor with baby wipes and cleaned the vomit of his clothing and put away liquor bottles before anyone arrived. Christopher said he ultimately went next door and encountered a neighbor who’d taken his dog out to go to the bathroom. He asked the neighbor to call 911 and asked if he knew CPR.”
Military police and medics arrived and began rendering aid to the baby and she was transported to Harrison before subsequently being transferred to Mary Bridge. While being monitored at Mary Bridge for brain activity, none was found and AnnaBelle was pronounced dead at approximately 9:30 p.m. Nov. 2.
“Christopher provided a voluntary taped statement which included his final version of events,” according to the probable cause statement. “When confronted with his differing versions of events, Christopher admitted that the first shaking incident was done out of frustration and the second was due to her unresponsiveness. I verified that the version of events he’d given first responders (and to us initially) was not accurate and his motivation at the time resulted from him being ‘panicked.'”
Mayo is the second person to be charged with the second-degree murder of an infant in Kitsap County this year. In July, Hector Francisco Saavedra Ruiz, 21, of the 26200 block of Central Avenue in Kingston, was charged in the shaking death of his four-month-old daughter.