Baby died of suspected abuse in KC, but prosecutors say they can’t file charges
One year after a 7-month-old baby died in Kansas City of injuries consistent with severe abuse, the Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office said no charges will be filed in his death.
At least not now.
Jackson County Prosecutor Melesa Johnson’s office told The Star this week that they don’t have the evidence needed to arrest and charge anyone in the murder of Giovanni Carr, who died on June 20, 2024.
“After a thorough investigation into the death of Giovanni Carr while in the care of babysitters, the Prosecutor’s Office has determined we cannot proceed with criminal charges at this time,” Jazzlyn Johnson, an office spokesperson, said in an email.
“While we recognize the profound loss suffered by the family, the evidence available to us at this time does not meet the burden for prosecution beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Giovanni Armon D’Angelo Carr, known as Gio, was hospitalized on June 15, 2024 with traumatic injuries to his brain, eyes and liver, according to relatives, along with fractured ribs, a lacerated spleen and burns on one foot.
Armoni Carr, the boy’s mother, wrote Thursday on social media that her son had also sustained cuts to his arms and legs, facial bruising and injuries to his eyes. Spleen and rib injuries in young children are often the result of blunt-force trauma, according to the Cleveland Clinic and the National Library of Medicine.
Carr has repeatedly alleged that Giovanni was fatally abused by his godmother and her boyfriend, who were watching the baby boy in the hours before he was hospitalized.
In her lengthy Facebook post Thursday, at times appearing angry and frustrated, she said that Kansas City police detectives first made contact with her hours after her son’s death, ultimately interviewing her entire family in October. The case was passed to the prosecutor’s office in December and assigned to a staffer in late February, she said.
After checking in regularly on her son’s case, Carr said she met with the prosecutor handling the case in April. That’s when she said she was told the office wouldn’t be filing charges.
“I left feeling literally heartbroken,” she wrote on Facebook Thursday, detailing the entire past year since her son died. “I’m crying like that is so wrong that my baby has no justice.”
The case comes down to what can be proved, prosecutors say.
“Medical experts cannot definitely rule out that the injuries occurred prior to the infant being in the babysitters’ care,” Johnson said. “So we cannot determine with certainty the precise timeframe when the injuries to the infant occurred.
“While we do not believe Ms. Carr was responsible, based on the doctor and medical examiner’s report and their expected testimony, we cannot pinpoint the exact timing of the injuries — whether they occurred before he was in the babysitters’ care or during, which is required for prosecution beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Jazzlyn Johnson said Prosecutor Melesa Johnson reached out to Carr Thursday morning to further explain why she and her office don’t feel charges can be filed at this time.
If additional evidence is brought forward, the prosecutor’s office said it will review it.
‘He would still be here’
The alleged godmother was a close friend of Carr for more than a decade and had watched Gio in the past, though never alone, The Star previously reported. Carr and her family have said that Carr dropped Gio off at the godmother’s house around 4:15 p.m. on June 15 so she could attend her first shift at an Amazon warehouse.
“If I wouldn’t have trusted her, I wouldn’t have even sent him over there,” Carr said last year. “And he would still be here.”
When Gio died, he hadn’t yet learned to crawl, just beginning to pull himself up on furniture. The sunny, curious baby had been teething and was “goofy” and “always smiling”, Carr has said.
The godmother allegedly texted Carr that Gio was “breathing funny” around 11:30 p.m., minutes before calling an ambulance to a home in the Blue Hills neighborhood of Kansas City.
When Carr arrived at the hospital, a doctor allegedly told her that he didn’t expect Gio to make it through the night, a distressed Carr wrote on social media Thursday.
“The doctors were telling me & my family that he had looked beaten and it definitely looked like abuse,” Carr wrote on Facebook. “He had so many injuries that he became unrecognizable, I just couldn’t understand because he was just the beautiful goofy bubbly baby he was LITERALLY HOURS before.”
Throughout the course of the suspicious death and homicide investigations, the Kansas City Police Department repeatedly declined to publicly name any suspects in Gio’s death.
A small group of relatives and friends staged a protest outside the godmother’s home in September, bearing handmade signs and chanting, “Justice for Gio!”
Funeral services for the baby took place on July 6, 2024. A white horse-drawn carriage transported Gio to his final resting place, a spray of blue flowers adorning the small white casket.
