The Scottsdale Police Department is investigating the death of a 4-month-old baby found dead in a baby seat next to her sleeping mother following a late-night party at the mother's Scottsdale apartment.
According to police, officers were called to an apartment complex near Scottsdale and McDowell roads around 5:45 yesterday morning.
At the scene, a neighbor of the victim told police that at 5:30 a.m., she noticed the front door to the baby's mother's apartment was wide open and that she could hear a child crying inside.
After about five minutes, the neighbor went into the apartment and found one baby (the dead girl's twin brother) crying in a crib and another baby motionless and blue in a baby seat placed next to her sleeping mother, who had been drinking and already had the cops called on her once that night after a verbal, domestic dispute with her baby-daddy.
The neighbor tried to wake the mother several times to no avail, but once she realized the baby wasn't breathing, she called police and shook the mother get her out of bed.
That's when the mother woke up and noticed her baby wasn't breathing and apparently freaked out -- "frantically" trying to revive the infant and running out the door, with the baby in her arms, to the apartment manager's home before emergency crews arrived.
The mother, according to police, had been partying in the apartment with about 15 friends for most of the night.
She told police she had put the baby to sleep in the baby seat about 11 p.m. and went back to partying.
Police were actually called to the same apartment about 12:30 a.m. responding to reports of a domestic dispute.
The mother and the dead girl's father had been arguing outside of the apartment. Police determined no crime had been committed but advised the baby-daddy to leave, which he did.
There have been no arrests in the case, but police say an investigation is under way. The dead girl's brother and two other children living in the apartment were turned over to Child Protective Services for placement with family members.
The cause of the baby's death has not been determined.
