Mother, boyfriend charged with death of 3-year-old in Maryland
A mother and her boyfriend are facing charges in connection with the death of her 3-year-old child in Maryland, according to Howard County police.
Kathleen Amesbury, 28, of Columbia, Maryland, and Dale Brown, Jr., 25, of Hanover, Pennsylvania, were both charged with murder, child abuse, involuntary manslaughter and neglect of a minor, according to police.
The charges came almost a year after police were called to a hospital for an injured child. The child had been transported by ambulance from a home in the 7200 block of Procopio Circle with severe injuries on March 26, 2025, according to officials.
The 3-year-old was pronounced dead on March 28, 2025, police said.
A year-long investigation revealed that Amesbury and Brown were responsible for the child's death, according to police. The couple was arrested in Pennsylvania on Friday.
Police did not share details about the manner of the child's death.
This is not the first time that parents have been charged with the death of a child in Maryland.
In February, two Baltimore parents pleaded guilty to child abuse after their 5-year-old daughter was found dead in their home in 2024.
Bernice and Gerald Byrd are set to be sentenced in June after their child, Zona Byrd, was found emaciated and malnourished in her bed. She was discovered by another family member who found her unresponsive and called the police.
According to charging documents, Bernice and Gerald could not remember the last time they had seen Zona or when she had last been fed. Gerald indicated during a police interview that their three other children had been going through the trash to find food.
In June 2025, a Maryland mother and her boyfriend were charged with the death of her 3-year-old daughter after court documents alleged they tried to hide her body and file a false kidnapping report in Delaware.
Both Darrian Randle and her boyfriend, Cedrick Britten, were arrested after 3-year-old Nola Dinkins' body was found in Cecil County.
According to charging documents, Randle misled police and later confessed to hitting her child until she was unresponsive. Randle and Britten are accused of putting the child's body in a suitcase and attempting to dispose of it in a vacant lot.
