A mother is in jail after she was allegedly drunk and fell asleep in bed next to her 2-month-old, which led to the girl’s suffocation, according to Atlanta police.
Decharae Key, 28, was arrested last week, nearly three weeks after her infant daughter, Summer Wright, was found dead in their southeast Atlanta apartment Nov. 26, Fulton County court records show. Key faces charges of second-degree murder, second-degree cruelty to children, reckless conduct and aggravated assault.
According to a warrant for her arrest, Key had been at the JJ Fish and Chicken restaurant on Pryor Road the night before. The eatery is attached to a Chevron gas station in the Peoplestown neighborhood.
Police said Key got to the restaurant with the infant and her 8-year-old daughter around 9 p.m. Security footage showed she left the children in the car and had trouble walking in a straight line when she got out, according to police. The child is then seen getting in and out of the front passenger side until Key returned, at which point the car “sat idle for over an hour,” the warrant states.
A man arrived shortly before 11 p.m., took a video of Key “visibly under the influence sitting in the driver’s seat” and took the children away, investigators noted in the warrant. His relationship to the children is not clear, but the warrant said he lives with Key.
Police said he returned to the restaurant a short time later and approached Key, who “jumped out of the vehicle” and began punching and kicking him and then pointed a gun at him. That’s what led to the aggravated assault charge.
The two eventually returned to their apartment in the Chosewood Park neighborhood and continued arguing until police were called and told the man to spend the night elsewhere, the warrant said. That left Key alone in the home with her baby.
When Key woke up shortly before noon the next day, the infant was unresponsive, the warrant states. The baby was rushed to Children’s Hughes Spalding Hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
Key, who “smelled of alcohol and was visibly upset,” told officers she slept in the same bed with Summer and last saw her alive around 6 a.m., police noted. Officers then obtained a search warrant for the home and said they found nearly a dozen empty cans of premade cocktails each containing at least 10% alcohol.
Investigators concluded that, with Key “passing out while under the influence of alcohol while in the same bed as her 2-month-old Summer and causing her death,” there was enough evidence to pursue a murder charge.
The woman was booked into the Fulton jail Dec. 11 and remains there without bond.
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