Elliott pleads not guilty in girl's death
Aug. 3—A Decatur man accused of killing his girlfriend's 8-month-old daughter in 2021 entered a not guilty plea at an arraignment in Morgan County Circuit Court on Monday afternoon.
Cameron Almen Elliott, 24, has been indicted on three counts of capital murder and one count of sexual torture in the girl's death and two felony drug charges.
District Attorney Scott Anderson said the three counts of capital murder include one for killing a child under the age of 14 and two counts for killing the child during a time that the defendant subjected the child to sexual abuse.
Anderson said his office will seek the death penalty in the case. Elliott is being held without bond in the Morgan County Jail.
Circuit Judge Charles Elliott, no relation to the defendant, heard several motions Monday filed by Cameron Elliott's defense team, including one asking that his mental state at the time of the alleged crime be reviewed. One of the defense attorneys, Catherine Carter, said the state has not given the defense evidence it has collected against Cameron Elliott. The alleged crime was committed in February 2021 in Southwest Decatur.
The defense also questioned the judge on what method will be used to determine how potential jurors view the death penalty and if they have been crime victims in the past. Judge Elliott said the court would address those concerns at the trial.
No trial date has been set.
"We have not received any discovery so far," Carter said after the 45-minute hearing Monday. "We should get that within a week, and we'll take a look at that and progress further."
Anderson said his office has other capital murder cases in front of Cameron Elliott's and securing and documenting the necessary paperwork takes time.
"Discovery will be turned over this week. We've got it ready. We want to go over it one more time to make sure we have everything in the file to send over there," he said. "We've got so many cases coming down and we're short-staffed. It takes some time to get all of the documents in. We're certainly not dragging our feet. It is workload and production of getting the documents to us."
Anderson said there were no surprises at Monday's hearing. "Pretty much everything that was heard was covered by the rules of procedure. But they have to do that," he said. "It was a check-the-box kind of day."
More hearings on motions that both sides are expected to file are next, he said. "We plan to file motions in regards to their experts and evidence they produce," Anderson said.
Decatur officers responded Feb. 9 and 10, 2021, to a call involving an unresponsive baby, and the baby was transported to the Parkway campus of Decatur Morgan Hospital with multiple injuries caused by blunt force trauma, authorities have said. The alleged victim, Makynslee Sanders, was later transported to Children's of Alabama in Birmingham where she died Feb. 15 as a result of her injuries.
A preliminary autopsy determined the cause of death was blunt force trauma, which had caused bleeding in the brain.
At a March 4, 2021, hearing, Decatur police Detective Timothy Pace, the lead investigator in the case, testified police arrived at the home of April Mason, Makynslee's mother and Elliott's girlfriend, at 12:02 a.m. Feb. 10 after a 911 call reporting an unresponsive child.
Elliott was standing in the driveway of the house in the 2200 block of Victoria Drive Southwest holding the girl, Pace said, and an officer immediately took her and initiated a Heimlich maneuver because she was not breathing. Decatur Fire & Rescue arrived one minute later and began CPR. An ambulance then took the child to Parkway hospital.
Pace said the girl had bruises on several areas of her body, her eyes were only partially open, her breathing was labored and she had a bite mark on her forearm. Pace said all of the injuries appeared recent.
According to Pace's testimony, Makynslee's mother had taken her to the pediatrician at about 3 p.m. Feb. 9. The girl was diagnosed with a double ear infection, but otherwise was in good health.
The child was crying and could not get to sleep late that night and, according to statements from Elliott and Mason, Elliott offered to take Makynslee with him as he went to the gas station at Decatur Mall, in the hope she would fall asleep in her car seat. He left with her at about 11:50 p.m., they said in statements.
About 10 minutes later, Elliott said he called Mason from the Popeye's restaurant parking lot next to the gas station to tell her he thought Makynslee was choking, according to statements summarized by Pace. Mason told Elliott to bring the child back to her Victoria Drive home and someone called Morgan County 911.
— mike.wetzel@decaturdaily.com or 256-340-2442. Twitter @DD_Wetzel.
