Father of missing Ind. baby charged with murder
INDIANAPOLIS -- Investigators have charged the father of an Indiana baby missing since August with killing the child, who is now presumed dead, according to charging documents obtained by 48 Hours' Crimesider.
Willie Wilson, 24, initially told police a man and a woman pistol-whipped him in an alley near his Indianapolis home and made off with his 6-week-old child, Delano. In the charging documents, however, police say his story doesn't match up with surveillance video and witness accounts, and they allege Wilson made up the story and researched missing children on his phone in the hours before he called police.
Police also say a neighbor heard an argument at the family's home that night, and investigators said they discovered traces of possible blood on a baby blanket, in a bathtub and in a sink there.
Wilson first called 911 at 12:02 p.m. Aug. 27, 2014, telling dispatchers, "I've just been robbed and someone took my daughter ....I mean my son," according to an affidavit for probable cause released to Crimesider by the Marion County Prosecutor's Office.
When police arrived, they found Wilson lying in the alley, according to the affidavit.
Wilson told police he was walking in the alley around noon near downtown Indianapolis, holding his son, when he was approached by a man and a woman who pulled up in a blue car. He said the man pointed a gun at him, forced him to empty his pockets and hit him in the head with a gun, according to the affidavit.
Wilson said the man told him, "I am not going to hurt the baby and I am not going to shoot you," before striking him.
Wilson said he blacked out for 10 to 15 seconds, and when he woke up, he claims he saw the blue car pulling away. He told police he saw the woman in the back of the car, carrying Delano's blue blanket, and assumed she was holding the child.
A massive search for the boy ensued as authorities canvassed the neighborhood. State, local and federal officials responded, but there was no sign of the infant. Authorities issued an Amber Alert and used canines in the search. Wilson worked with police to develop sketches of the suspected man and the woman, and local and national media outlets covered the apparent abduction.
As police began to further question Wilson, however, they say his story fell apart.
Despite reporting he was pistol-whipped, Wilson had no visible injuries when police interviewed him later that day, according to the affidavit. When police reviewed surveillance footage, they saw a man who appeared to be Wilson walking moments before he called 911, but he wasn't carrying a child.
A blue car also wasn't seen on the surveillance video, according to the affidavit.
Wilson told police he left his home around 11 a.m. with the child to take a walk, and had circled his block twice with the child before the robbery occurred. He told police he could circle the block in ten minutes, a timeline police said doesn't match with his noon 911 call.
Police also interviewed the child's mother, Wilson's girlfriend Taniasha Perkins. Perkins told police that she saw Wilson holding Delano the morning the infant vanished, and that the child was cold and appeared to be asleep.
She said she saw Wilson wrap the child in a blanket and put him in his bassinet. Perkins told police Wilson left the house with the child to take a walk while she was in the shower.
"I don't want to say Willie did it, but in the back of my mind, I have a funny feeling, but this is not in his character -- all he does is work," she told police.
Perkins denied there had been an argument in her home that morning, a stark contrast to the story police were told by neighbor Paul Taulbee. Taulbee said that between 2:30 and 3:30 a.m. that morning he was awakened by yelling and screaming coming from the home that lasted for 15 to 20 minutes.
He told police he heard Taniasha Perkins say, "God damn, this never should have happened," and Wilson yelling something about the shower that may have been, "put it in the shower."
Perkins is not being charged with any crime, a spokeswoman for the Marion County Prosecutor's Office told Crimesider.
Days later, police got a warrant to search the phone Wilson was carrying at the time of the alleged abduction -- a Samsung Galaxy S III Wilson said wasn't stolen by the alleged assailant.
An FBI forensic examiner said a document titled "Infant Abduction Statistics" had been downloaded onto the phone. Later, officials would learn it had been downloaded at 10:19 a.m. Aug. 27, less than two hours before Wilson called 911 to report the child missing.
According to the affidavit, Internet search history on the phone included the search terms, "missing infants in USA," "missing infants 2014," "child kidnapping," "babies kidnapping stories," "missing children who were found," and "babies who've been abducted and not found."
"His researching, via the Internet, of missing children hours before his child ostensibly became missing is further proof that Delano Wilson was not abducted as reported," police wrote in the affidavit.
Police also say the descriptions Wilson gave to police of the alleged male and female assailant resemble characters from the popular video game, "Grand Theft Auto."
Wilson told police he had another child in Toledo, Ohio, who he said suffered various injuries including a broken femur, and that both he and the child's mother -- another woman --testified before a grand jury in the case, according to the affidavit. According to police, he said he wasn't charged because the child's mother admitted to causing the injuries.
Days later, on Sept. 1, 2014, police executed a search warrant at the home and that's when the discovered what appeared to be blood in the bathroom sink and bathtub and on a light blue baby blanket.P olice re-interviewed Perkins, asking her where in the house she thought the crime lab technicians found traces of blood.
She replied, "in the bathroom, on the floor, but that was the only place she could think of," according to the affidavit.
When police asked Perkins what she thought the evidence would tell investigators, she said "it would tell that Willie did something to her baby."
Police say they also interviewed a septic tank truck driver who identified Perkins and Wilson as the man and the woman he saw walking out of the woods and climbing over the guardrail on a road between 10 and 10:30 a.m. the morning Delano disappeared.
He told police the woman had a "blank stare on her face," according to the document.
The child remains missing, but police say in the affidavit they believe him to be dead. Wilson was appointed a public defender during a hearing Thursday, according to prosecutors.
Wilson didn't speak during the hearing, CBS affiliate WISH reports. A not guilty plea was entered on his behalf, and a bond hearing was set for April 2. He denied hurting the child to police, according to the affidavit.
Crimesider couldn't immediately reach the public defender's office for comment.
