CLARK COUNTY — A Clark County grand jury approved murder charges for the parents of a 4-month-old boy who died just after Christmas.
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Clark County deputies and medics were called to a home near New Carlisle about a child’s illness in December 2023, but deputies said this long investigation showed something more sinister. They arrested the mother and father, 25-year-old Landan Jennings and 21-year-old Angel Seiker, who relatives insist are innocent.
“Nobody’s abusing him. Nobody was abusing him,” Amy Owens, Jennings’ mother and the child’s grandmother, said.
Both Jennings and Seiker have been charged with murder, felonious assault, endangering children, and permitting child abuse.
“Not just my mind, we all know. Everybody knows them, knows they wouldn’t do that,” Owens said.
She and Asia Potts were cleaning the couple’s apartments after their arrest on Wednesday. They were shocked by the child’s death, which they believe was caused by a rhinovirus. They were equally shocked by the couple’s arrest nine months later.
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“These investigations are not fast, they’re not quick,” Lt. Kris Shultz, Detective Lieutenant for the Clark County Sheriff’s Office, said. “We rely on the medical community, the forensic medical community.”
Shultz said the investigation looked at the presenting problems the child was rushed to the children’s hospital with and the underlying concerns uncovered by doctors and then the coroners and forensic pathologists.
As shown on News Center 7 at 5:00, Mike Campbell asked Shultz if investigators believed there was anything accidental about the infant’s death. He said “No.”
“This points to an acute isolated situation taking place as part of a pattern of conduct over a period of time,” Shultz said.
He told News Center 7 that it is possible that the injuries they discovered happened at the couple’s apartment in Fairborn, as well as other possible locations.
The child’s grandmother just can’t believe her son and his girlfriend would hurt a child they loved.
“I just lost my 16-year-old son two years ago,” Owens said. “I can’t lose my second son.”
The couple is expected to appear in court on Friday.
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