A Kennedy Heights father is accused of killing his 23-day-old daughter in a case prosecutors say mirrors the abuse that sent him to prison nearly 11 years ago for severely injuring his infant son.
Christopher Evans, 35, is charged in Hamilton County Municipal Court with murder, felonious assault and child endangerment. During a Sept. 11 arraignment, Judge Donte Johnson set Evans' bonds at a combined $2 million. Evans has pleaded not guilty.
His daughter, Naomi Evans, was found unresponsive Sept. 5 after police responded to a location in the 6000 block of Red Bank Road. Investigators said the girl was taken to Cincinnati Children's Hospital, where she died the next day.
An arrest report states that Christopher Evans "knowingly" harmed Naomi through
physical force significant enough to cause "massive" head trauma, resulting in a skull fracture and brain bleeding. Police said Evans admitted the child was breathing and otherwise healthy before she was left alone with him.
Hamilton County Assistant Prosecutor Mike Keeling said Naomi suffered the "exact same injuries" as Evans' son, who was hospitalized in October 2015 at three weeks old with subdural bleeding, brain injury and fractured legs.
Evans was caring for the boy at his home in Loveland while the child's mother went to the grocery store, court documents state. He told detectives that he'd been "bouncing the baby too hard" and became "frustrated and upset" while changing the boy's diaper.
He also confessed to throwing his son onto a changing table, causing the boy's head to strike a wooden portion of the table, according to the documents.
Evans was found guilty in 2017 of felonious assault and child endangerment at the conclusion of a jury trial in Warren County Common Pleas Court. He was sentenced to three years in prison.
"Please do not let him be around any more children," Keeling told the judge. He described the circumstances surrounding Naomi's death as "horrific facts that seem to be just repeating themselves over and over again."
James Moore, Evans' attorney, said in court that the case involves a "shaken baby."
Moore argued there are reliability issues surrounding the science of diagnosing child abuse. He also pointed to what he described as "well-documented bias" within the medical community surrounding an "innocent injury" being treated as such for White families, but not minority families.
"Obviously these allegations are extremely serious," Moore said.
Evans is being held at the Hamilton County Justice Center awaiting trial. His case is expected to be presented to a grand jury by Sept. 21.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: 'Horrific facts' in baby's death echo dad's 2015 case, prosecutor says
