WOMAN
PLEADS GUILTY IN FEDERAL COURT TO MURDERING INFANT
U.S.
Attorney Johnny Sutton announced that 24-year-old Donna Michelle Forbes
faces mandatory life in federal prison after admitting to killing a five-month-old
girl on Fort Hood.
Appearing before United States Chief District Judge Walter Smith, Jr.,
Forbes admitted that was babysitting the child on July 28, 2006, and that
over a period of several hours that morning, the child would not stop
crying. Forbes admitted she shook the child violently and even slammed
the child on the ground at least twice causing trauma to the child’s head.
Furthermore, she admitted to striking the child on her back with a closed
fist. Forbes, who later realized that the infant was unconscious, placed
the child in her car seat and extended the canopy to conceal the baby’s
head. When the infant’s mother arrived to take the child home, she saw
the canopy extended and assumed her child was asleep. Forbes didn’t tell
her what had transpired earlier.
When they arrived at their home, the mother noticed unusual bruising on
the child’s face. After removing the child from the car seat the mother
realized that the child was limp and having difficulty breathing. She
immediately took her daughter to Darnell Army Medical Center. The infant
was later transferred to Scott and White Memorial Hospital in Temple.
There, physicians discovered that the child had a fractured skull and
suffered from significant subdural hemorrhage, the result of non-accidental
trauma. On July 30, 2006, doctors declared the child brain dead and removed
her from the ventilator.
Sentencing for Forbes, who remains in federal custody, is scheduled for
July 25, 2007.
This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S.
Army Criminal Investigation Division. Assistant United States Attorney
Mark Frazier and Specials Assistant Sam Gregory prosecuted this case on
behalf of the government.
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