‘She was adored’: Family of baby found dead in Kansas City still searching for answers

Ribbons of police tape still stretched over a field in east Kansas City as a few dozen people gathered Friday evening to release balloons in memory of Kha’liya Bridgewater, who at 6 months old was found dead on Mother’s Day weekend in the nearby wooded area.

Kha’liya’s uncle, Randall Lammers, 30, said he was moved by the crowd of a few dozen people who showed up to remember such a young life.

“She was loved. She was adored,” said Lammers, who has two young kids of his own.

Robin Davis, 62, Kha’liya’s great grandmother through marriage, said she was still “stunned.”

“It’s hard for us to figure this out ... we can’t get a straight-enough answer out of anybody to find out what the truth is, and we just really want to know the truth,” she said.

On May 13, Kansas City police received a call about a baby’s body found decomposing in a field near a wooded area.

Police on Thursday identified the victim as Kha’liya. The case is still under investigation as police wait for the medical examiner to determine her cause of death. The case is classified as a death investigation, led by homicide detectives. No other information has been released.

“You can’t process if you don’t know,” Kha’liya’s grandmother, Ruthann Hickman, 46, said at Friday’s vigil. “I just want to know. We’re just ready to start healing, and finding out what happened is part of that process.”

According to an affidavit filed in support of a search warrant, Kansas City detectives suspected Kha’liya may have died in an apartment several days before her body was discarded.

A witnesses told detectives the baby’s mother told them she woke up one day to find the child “blue in the face,” saying police and emergency services were called to the apartment. She also asked for money to pay for a cremation.

Detectives said that no report of the 6-month-old’s death was ever made.

Another witness reported a “horrific” smell coming from the woman’s apartment as early as late April.

Detectives have since interviewed Kha’liya’s mother, who initially “denied ever having an infant daughter,” according to court documents before saying she actually did.

The woman told police her daughter was last seen alive on May 4 in her apartment in the city’s Squier Park neighborhood. That night, she said, her boyfriend told her the baby was choking and he held her against his chest. She said he later told her she was sleeping.

An hour later, she told detectives she found the baby with her eyes open and her arms folded against her chest. She said she did not call 911 because her phone was broken, according to court documents. The following day, she said, she saw her boyfriend buckle the dead child into a car seat and leave.

Kha’liya’s body was eventually found in a field with two kitchen trash bags under and around her legs, court records show. A baby blanket and a small, yellow headband were on the ground nearby.

“We don’t know how to handle this. You know, you can’t run from it, you can’t sleep it off. None of it works,” said Lammers, Kha’liya’s uncle. “They say it gets easier, but that’s a lie. But we have to try for her.”

Only six months old, she had so much life to live, and will hopefully live it through us, in our own ways.”

Family set up a GoFundMe to raise money for Kha’liya’s burial. As of Friday evening it collected nearly $3,500 in donations.