Police said the baby was attacked by a dog, and the Montgomery County Coroner’s office said she died from blood loss due to extensive soft tissue trauma. Her death was ruled an accident by the coroner.
Dayton police are continuing to investigate the baby’s death, according to a police spokeswoman this week.
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“As this is an ongoing investigation, we are not releasing any additional information at this time,” the statement by police said.
But the search warrant filed Jan. 21 with the court does offer some new information about the investigation.
Dayton Police Detective Karina Sulek wrote in the affidavit for the warrant that on Jan. 9 at about 11:43 p.m. officers were dispatched to 114 Vermont Avenue for a baby who was dead. The affidavit says McKenzie’s father, Parker Terwell, was waiting for police on the porch and told police that the baby’s mother, Mary Shoup, was sleeping on a sofa when he arrived home and found his daughter dead.
“Prescriptions were seen next to the sofa, prescribed to Ms. Shoup,” the search warrant says.
The side effects of the prescriptions were drowsiness, cognitive dysfunction and insomnia, according to the warrant.
Parker Terwell said in a 9-1-1 call that he had just arrived from work and found his daughter laying on the floor alone and dead.
Sulek wrote in the affidavit she arrived on the scene and noticed a security camera on the front porch, aimed towards the front door.
“The camera was a Blink Camera owned by Amazon. Ms. Shoup advised the camera was accessed from a phone application,” the search warrant says. “Ms. Shoup signed a consent to search for her cellphone. Her cellphone was delivered to Detective Merwyn Rodrigues to be downloaded. During the download process, Detective Rodrigues saw a notification stating video had been deleted from Blink. The date and time of the deletion is unable to be determined at this time.”
9-1-1 call: Dayton baby killed by dog found alone on floor, not breathing
Sulek said she wanted to learn more about the deleted footage and what else was on the device.
“From my training and experience, security footage can contain evidence associated with criminal activity,” the search warrant says. “The position of the Amazon Blink Security Camera contains information about who is entering and leaving the residence and could provide additional evidence regarding the case being investigated at 114 Vermont Avenue.”
According to the search warrant return, Dayton police did get the information after a judge signed the search warrant. Exactly what was on the video wasn’t detailed in the public documents.
Meanwhile, law enforcement officials continue to be mum on the details of the dog that is alleged to have killed McKenzie.
The Dayton Daily News has requested information about the dog’s breed and age from both the Montgomery County Animal Resource Center and Dayton Police. Both agencies declined to comment.
“We don’t have any further information to release at this time,” the Animal Resource Center said in a statement. “This is the Dayton Police Department’s investigation, and it’ll be up to their department what information they’re able to release while it’s under investigation.”
The search warrant does say that there were multiple dogs inside the home when police arrived and “already secured” when police went inside the home.
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