Prosecutors will attempt to hold an Austell father responsible for the 2021 death of his infant daughter and the alleged abuse that landed her in a children’s hospital at just 4 weeks old.
Sherrard Marquise Brooks, 24, was indicted Thursday as the result of a extensive investigation into the killing of Nevaeh Brooks, who suffered extensive brain injuries following a “brutal and prolonged attack,” according to an arrest warrant. He is charged with three counts of felony murder, one count of aggravated battery, one count of aggravated assault and two counts of first-degree cruelty to children in the girl’s death.
Court documents obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution detailed numerous injuries that a Cobb County medical examiner said were consistent with assault, including brain trauma that caused bleeding, bruising all over her body and skin abrasions. The baby’s father, at the time of her death, explained those injuries as accidents, his warrant shows.
Nevaeh was taken to Wellstar Kennestone Hospital on Nov. 22, 2021, by her mother, Alisa Marchand, who complained the child had abnormal breathing, lack of eye tracking and pale skin. She was then taken to a Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta location by ambulance for specialized treatment after being diagnosed with “extensive brain hemorrhages and unexplained bruising all over her body,” a Cobb police investigator wrote in the warrant.
Doctors suspected the injuries were caused by abuse and contacted police. While they couldn’t confirm it at the time, they suspected the child was shaken to the point of receiving brain injuries that “she was unable to survive,” the investigator said.
She was pronounced dead four days later.
Marchand told detectives that she left her two young children in the care of their father, Sherrard Brooks, and went to work around 5 p.m. Nov. 21. When she got home around 4:30 a.m. the next morning, Marchand found her daughter “having a possible seizure” in her baby swing, the warrant stated.
Sherrard Brooks did not acknowledge his daughter’s visible injuries, the investigator said in the warrant, despite medical records indicating bruising and marks on her neck that appeared “raw and new.” He told police the brain injuries were a result of an empty humidifier falling on the girl, and the marks were likely caused by a swaddle rubbing against her neck while she slept.
According to the warrant, the two marks on each side of Nevaeh’s neck were roughly the size of a fingertip. Medical personnel also concluded the child’s injuries were not caused by a humidifier, and were “so grave that they likely occurred in very close proximity” to where her mother found her, the investigator said.
It took several months and an autopsy for authorities to rule Nevaeh’s death a homicide, kicking off the police investigation in April 2022. Sherrard Brooks was arrested in January and has been jailed without bond in Cobb since then.
Brooks will be arraigned at a hearing scheduled for a later date.
