CHESAPEAKE, Va. (WAVY) — A man is facing several charges including child abuse and murder after a two-year-old girl in Chesapeake died Thursday morning.
Officers responded to a local hospital just before 7 a.m. Wednesday regarding a two-year-old girl who had been admitted with life-threatening injuries. On Thursday, officials say the girl died from her injuries.
A preliminary investigation revealed that 35-year-old Harvion Lontel Simpkins was watching the girl and an infant child while her mother was at work. The infant was unharmed.
Simpkins initially faced child abuse charges and threatening by electronic message, for allegedly texting the child’s mother, Tiesha Burton, saying he would beat her. But when she returned to the In Town Suites in Greenbrier, it was her little girl who took the beating. A neighbor who shares a common wall with the crime scene told WAVY off-camera she didn’t hear anything. Meanwhile, another resident was outraged.
“It’s just bad, period,” said Annette Brown, a long time resident at the motel on Old Greenbrier Road. “He does need to get punished, whatever they could give him.”
The child is identified in court documents only as A-B, and when she died early Thursday police added second degree murder to the four original felony charges against Simpkins.
Court documents show when Burton got home from work late Tuesday, she found A-B with a busted lip, bruised face and other injuries. After she was taken to CHKD, surgeons treated her for a fractured skull, brain bleed and other injuries.
“Horrible. I mean, he’s not a man who hurts children like that,” Brown said. “Around here, it’s very quiet and you don’t even know about anybody doing anything like that.”
10 On Your Side has also learned that Simpkins is a registered sex offender out of Accomack in connection with a 2010 incident in which Simpkins was charged with carnal knowledge of a child between the age of 13 and 15 years old.
The incident is still under investigation. No further information has been released.
Continue to check WAVY.com for updates.
