Holly MatkinFairbanks, AK – A one-year-old girl was murdered by her mother’s boyfriend while he was attempting to keep her quiet so he could focus on playing his video game late last week, according to police.
The investigation into the baby’s death began the morning of Nov. 4, when the Fairbanks Emergency Communications Center received a call about a deceased child at a home located in the 1600-block of Central Avenue, the Fairbanks Police Department (FPD) said in a press release.
Officers responded to the scene and found the one-year-old girl dead.
She had multiple injuries across her body, which police noted were “consistent with being assaulted.”
An FPD crime scene investigator and department detectives were immediately called to the scene.
The child’s mother told investigators she found her daughter dead when she went in to wake her up that morning.
She explained that she had left her children with her live-in boyfriend, 31-year-old Zackry Johnson, while she went to work the day before, according to the FPD.
When she returned home that night, Johnson allegedly told her that her daughter was already asleep.
Investigators subsequently took Johnson to the FPD for an interview, during which he allegedly claimed the one-year-old had been “play fighting” with her six-year-old sister earlier the night before, according to police.
“When confronted that the injuries observed on the child were inconsistent with injuries which would be caused by two young siblings rough-housing, JOHNSON provided different accounts of how the child received the injuries,” the FPD said.
Investigators said Johnson ultimately admitted that he caused “multiple injuries” to the toddler and that he had used “too much force” while trying to get her to go to sleep.
Johnson said he wanted to “get her to take a nap so that he could play video games,” police said.
“He demonstrated several of the actions he used on the child and further acknowledged his actions likely led to the death of the girl,” according to the FPD.
Johnson was arrested and booked into the Fairbanks Correctional Center on a charge of second-degree murder for allegedly “knowingly engaging in conduct that resulted in the death of another person under circumstances manifesting an extreme indifference to the value of human life,” the FPD said.
They urged anyone with information about the little girl’s murder to contact police immediately.
