GUILTY CA - Andrew Bailey, 2, Shingle Springs, 15 March 2008

SewingDeb said:

This is why parental kidnappings should be taken as seriously as any other abduction. It shows instability at the very least.

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Dr. Doogie said:

This happened in my area. When I heard the Amber Alert, it sounded merely like a non-custodial parent stealing their child. I assumed that, while this should be stopped and the perp caught, I figured that the child was safe. Sadly, I was mistaken and the worst possible outcome occured.

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Bailey faces charges of first-degree murder in the alleged kidnapping-death of Andrew Anthony Bailey, who would have turned 3 years old May 24. A special allegation was added to the murder charge for possible use of a deadly and dangerous weapon, "a screwdriver," in the commission of the crime...

The tragic events began last Saturday shortly after 6 a.m. when Bailey reportedly attacked Melson, his girlfriend of about six years, with an ax inside the fifth-wheel trailer he shared with her and their son Andrew, according to El Dorado County sheriff's spokesman Sgt. Jim Byers. The trailer sits behind Melson's parents' home on Wild Turkey Road in Shingle Springs. Melson reportedly escaped Bailey's violent frenzy at about 6:50 and ran down the hill to a neighbor's house even as her head and upper body were bleeding from numerous wounds...

Responding deputies soon learned that Bailey had already fled the scene, driving a white 1995 Honda Passport, but not before he apparently abducted Andrew... El Dorado County sheriff's detectives think Bailey murdered his son within 30 minutes of fleeing his Shingle Springs home before heading south into Tuolumne County, then dumped his body behind the Martell store on his way to Sonora.

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For most of us, it takes a moment or two to recollect the details — but that day in March 2008 is indelibly seared in Merrily Melson’s mind. That’s the day her baby died.

She won’t even say his name, the man who stabbed her child more than 50 times with a screwdriver...


It was about 3 a.m. March 15 when Melson heard Bailey slip out of their bed...

Bailey was in the bathroom gathering drain cleaner and ammonia, which he had purchased together with heavy-duty gloves and a drywall ax, which has a hammer on one end, a blade on the other, Melson would learn later.

“The receipt the cops showed me where he bought all these things — he bought them on my birthday, Feb. 22,” she said...


Charles Bailey is in state prison now, serving two life sentences with no possibility of parole after being convicted in El Dorado County Superior Court. He was arrested after a woman friend whom he called while fleeing kept him on the phone long enough for her boyfriend to use another phone to alert authorities; the call was traced to a phone booth at a gas station in Sonora, where Bailey was nailed with a taser and taken into custody.

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