‘She cut my baby up’: 911 calls capture moments after 3-year-old stabbed to death in Las Vegas
In emotional 911 recordings released by police Monday, the parents of a 3-year-old girl who was stabbed to death reacted to the bloody scene.
The first call, time stamped 3:34 a.m. Wednesday, came from a man who said he was the child’s father. Before the dispatcher could ask about the emergency, he began screaming.
“What happened? What the f— did you do? You killed my baby?” the man screamed.
The Metropolitan Police Department said officers responded to the scene that morning following reports that babysitter Marketta Phillips, 41, had killed a 3-year-old child, later identified as Journei Ross, inside an apartment in the central Las Vegas Valley.
The girl’s father, Jeremy Ross, described his relationship with Phillips as romantic, though on-again, off-again. He added that it was not his first time leaving the child in Phillips’ care while at work.
But when he returned home on Wednesday, Journei was unresponsive inside a bedroom, and Phillips was acting “out of it,” Ross said. He said he also found knives with blood on them.
In the 911 recording, the dispatcher instructed the caller to perform CPR on the child.
“My baby is not breathing,” the caller said. “She’s bleeding everywhere. She cut my baby up.”
Shortly after, the caller said the woman was trying to leave the residence. Police have said that Phillips fled the scene but was eventually arrested and booked on suspicion of open murder. On Thursday, Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Suzan Baucum decided to hold her without bail.
In a second call, a woman told a 911 operator she was Journei’s mother. The woman, Phalan Whitson, said she was not at the home then but started driving there after Ross told her what had happened.
Whitson and Ross shared custody of Journei, Whitson has said, but she did not know Phillips.
“I told him, don’t bring nobody around my child that I don’t know,” the woman cried while still driving. “Why would he do this? Why would he lie to me?”
A calls for service log associated with Ross’ apartment indicated that police had been called to the home twice in the past: once for a family disturbance in October and another time for a “sick or injured person” on Mar. 16.
Hurried footsteps could be heard at the end of the call as the woman told the dispatcher that she had arrived at the scene.
“Please, can I see my baby?” she wailed on the audio recording.
Contact Akiya Dillon at adillon@reviewjournal.com.