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OCT 5, 2022

Kamille ‘Cupcake’ McKinney’s injuries described in emotional day of testimony

Retired FBI agent Stanley Ruffin described the horrific moment he found the decomposing body of 3-year-old Kamille “Cupcake” McKinney in a heap of trash at a Jefferson County landfill.

“I saw what I thought was a doll just laying there,’’ an emotional Ruffin testified. “And I realized it wasn’t doll.”

[...]

“I was involved in 9/11 and I thought that was one of the worst things I would experience in my career, until this,’’ he said. “I had never dealt with a child.”

Ruffin said all involved in the recovery had to receive counseling, and Ruffin retired from the FBI a short time later. ...

[...]

During Ruffin’s testimony, jurors were shown photos of the landfill, and then photos of the discovery of Cupcake’s body.

The photos were not shown to the court spectators, and a barrier screen was placed in front of Cupcake’s family so they could not see the photos on the jurors’ monitors.

[...]

He said Brown had been molested as a child and wanted Stallworth to do the same things to Cupcake.

“We was freaky, you know what I’m saying,’’ Stallworth told the detectives, but said what Brown was suggesting was “too far.”

[...]

He said he went to sleep and when he woke up, the baby was gone, and his girlfriend was beside him. They had sex, he told detectives.

Eventually, Stallworth told detectives that his girlfriend killed Cupcake. “I think she choked her. She might have choked her,’’ he said.

[...]

Dye testified that Cupcake had two small abrasions on her back, as well as abrasions on the back of left arm and elbow, which he described as blunt force injuries – either she hit something hard or something hard hit her, he said.

There were also three abrasions on her left buttock and thigh.

The autopsy also showed Cupcake had contusions – or bruises – on the right side of her forehead and face, which he said is consistent with something pushing against the area or being “held down and pressed against a hard object.”

[...]

Toxicology testing, Dye said, showed Cupcake had Trazodone – an anti-depressant for which Stallworth says he had prescription for sleep – Benadryl and methamphetamine in her system. Benadryl, he said, is used as a “cutting agent” with illicit drugs.

[...]

Dye said he could not say what effect the drugs had on Cupcake but concluded, “Methamphetamine and Trazodone are part of the reason she died.”

Under cross examination, Dye acknowledged that there were no genital or anal injuries to Cupcake, nor any evidence found around her mouth area to indicate sexual abuse or trauma.

[...]
 

Testimony reveals disturbing details surrounding Cupcake McKinney’s death

[...]

Day 3: Wednesday, October 5, 2022 - final update:

Some of the information in this update may be difficult to read or inappropriate for some audiences.

[...]

Ruffin had trouble speaking as he recalled Cupcake’s body being put in a bag to be transported for an autopsy. At this point, she’d been missing for 10 days.

Due to the nature of the case and the burden of proof the government must meet, they had to show the jury very sensitive images of Cupcake in the landfill. Quickly, several jurors became emotional, wiping away tears. The court quickly timed the shots, holding them for no more than three seconds each, warning the jury in advance of a new picture so they were prepared.

[...]

Dr. Daniel Dye, M.D., the forensic pathologist who performed Cupcake’s autopsy, testified next.

Dye explained the decomposition in this case posed a challenge to his work. He confirmed Cupcake had a contusion on her head, pointing toward the hairline area, with swelling on the side of the face that could be associated with blunt force trauma.

Dye ruled the cause of death in this case asphyxia, or suffocation, and agreed that injury could be associated with the head being pressed down against a hard object. This is consistent with a recorded statement Stallworth made to police, explaining his girlfriend Derick Brown killed Cupcake by putting her hand over the child’s nose and mouth until she couldn’t breathe.

The toxicology report also found methamphetamine and Trazadone in the child’s system, stating this also played a role in Cupcake’s death.

The government called Birmingham Police Sergeant Talana Brown, who was also involved in interviewing both Stallworth and Brown in the initial phases of the investigation.

The prosecution started by playing an interview with Stallworth’s co-defendant Derick Brown. In the interview, Brown insinuates Stallworth dumped Cupcake’s body in a dumpster. Talana Brown testified she passed along that tip FBI.

During cross-examination, Talana Brown testified that Derick Brown lied to police early in the investigation. The defense worked to shift the focus away from earlier testimony, which questioned whether Stallworth was forthcoming with authorities.

Defense attorney Derrick Collins showed the jury a video recording of one of Derick Brown’s interviews with police.

“I’ll lie on him if y’all want me to,” Brown told police, referencing Stallworth. “I’m not going to jail for anybody... what do y’all want me to say?”

FBI Cellular Analyst Blake Downing was called as the last witness of the day. Downing was tasked with tracking Stallworth’s cell phone during the investigation. He testified about the technology used to determine Stallworth’s location through the phone signal.

[...]
 
OCT 7, 2022

3 years after Kamille ‘Cupcake’ McKinney’s death, jury convicts Stallworth on federal kidnapping charges

Nearly three years after a 3-year-old girl was kidnapped and murdered in Birmingham, one of the people responsible for her kidnapping has been convicted by a federal jury.

On Friday, a jury found Patrick Devone Stallworth, 42, guilty of kidnapping and conspiracy to kidnap. ...

[...]

Stallworth and Brown are also facing capital murder charges in Jefferson County criminal court. No court date has been set in that case. Brown’s federal case has not yet gone to trial.

Stallworth is also facing possession of child *advertiser censored* and possession of child *advertiser censored* with an intent to distribute in an unrelated case.

Patrick Stallworth convicted in Kamille ‘Cupcake’ McKinney’s fatal kidnapping

After less than an hour of deliberations, a jury on Friday convicted the man accused in the deadly 2019 kidnapping of a Birmingham 3-year-old.

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OCT 7, 2022

Jury finds Stallworth guilty on kidnapping, conspiracy charges in disappearance, death of Kamille ‘Cupcake’ McKinney

[...]

The jury found Stallworth not only planned to kidnap a child, but that kidnapping resulted in Cupcake’s death. A decision reached following four days of challenging testimony from more than 20 witnesses and viewing more than 100 exhibits.

“He will never walk free again,” stated Lloyd Peeples, Assistant United States Attorney and Criminal Division Chief. “We all went and spoke to the family afterward, seeing the expressions of relief on [the family’s] face, I wouldn’t have to get a paycheck for anything I did on this case, that’s the reward.”

The mandatory sentence for kidnapping which leads to death is life in prison without parole.

[...]

The verdict comes almost three years to the day McKinney was kidnapped in Avondale.

[...]

The government now transitions to the next case, prosecuting Stallworth’s co-defendant Derick Brown, who will be tried on the same federal counts in November.

Stallworth will be sentenced in the coming months.

[...]
 
NOV 4, 2022
A federal judge has ruled Derick Brown's police statements are admissible in her upcoming trial for the fatal kidnapping of Kamille 'Cupcake' McKinney.

[...]

Brown's federal kidnapping trial is set to begin on Nov. 11.

Her attorneys had asked Judge Scott Coogler to prevent prosecutors from preventing three statements Brown made to Birmingham Police Detectives in the wake of McKinney's disappearance.

They claimed that Brown did not have full awareness of the nature of her rights to remain silent and to an attorney during the interviews.

Coogler ruled that a defense expert's findings were not credible.

[...]
 
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NOV 14, 2022

Federal trial begins for accused ‘Cupcake’ McKinney kidnapper Derick Brown

The jury for Brown’s trial was seated Monday before noon. If convicted, Brown could face a similar sentence to Stallworth.

The trial is expected to last most of the week. Kelvin Nail, the father of Brown’s children, is expected to testify Tuesday.

Derick Irisha Brown ‘minded her own business’ as boyfriend abducted Kamille ‘Cupcake” McKinney, lawyer says

When Kamille “Cupcake” McKinney was abducted in 2019 and taken to the apartment of Patrick Stallworth and his girlfriend, Derick Irisha Brown, she was somewhere she didn’t belong and with the wrong people.

The 3-year-old needed hope, Northern District of Alabama Assistant U.S. Attorney Brittany Byrd told a federal jury Monday, but instead all she had was Brown.

“Instead of hope, she had despair. Instead of help, she had hurt. Instead of rescue, she was taken from us forever,’’ Byrd said.

[...]

Brown, she said, did nothing but mind her own business the entire day leading up to the deadly abduction.

“This is a case about a terrible, unthinkable crime committed by Patrick Stallworth, not Derick Brown,” Robertson told jurors.

“Derick Brown minded her own business, and for that you can only find her not guilty.”

[...]
 
NOV 14, 2022

Federal trial underway for woman accused of kidnapping, killing 3-year-old Cupcake McKi

[...]

Day 1: Monday, Nov 14, 2022 - final update:

A majority-male jury was seated Monday, shortly after noon. During opening statements, Assistant United States Attorney Brittany Byrd told the jury the defendants used candy to lure Kamille ‘Cupcake’ McKinney from Tom Brown Village in Birmingham where she was visiting her cousins.

“She needed help, she needed rescuing - but she was killed and thrown away,” Byrd stated.

Byrd promised the jury they would hear from several expert witnesses who would explain how McKinney died, the drugs in her system at the time of her death and the DNA evidence police lifted from Brown’s apartment that she shared with Stallworth.

Defense attorney Robin Robertson pushed back against the idea that Brown had a role in McKinney’s abduction. She retraced Brown’s day, which was spent with Stallworth. At multiple points, Robertson explained what Stallworth was doing and emphasized, Brown was ‘minding her own business’.

By the time Stallworth and Brown arrived at Tom Brown Village, Robertson said Brown was on meth and wasn’t feeling well. She remained in the car when Stallworth parked and stepped away.

“Patrick Stallworth sold drugs, she knew better than to ask questions,” Robertson explained. “Patrick alone lured one of those little girls back to the car.”

McKinney’s mother, April Thomas was the government’s first witness. Thomas tearfully walked the jury through her last day with Cupcake. Thomas and her children were visiting their cousins at Tom Brown Village. She said Cupcake and the other children were playing outside. When it was time to go, no one could find Cupcake.

“I noticed her shoes were in the backyard, that’s when I knew something was wrong,” said Thomas.

Thomas’s cousin Shenita Long, the family member they were visiting in Tom Brown Village also testified about that night. Her daughter Ava was McKinney’s best friend and was with McKinney when she was lured away by a man to go get candy.

The trial is expected to last at least one week.

[...]
 

Second day of federal trial for woman accused of kidnapping Kamille 'Cupcake' McKinney

In Tuscaloosa, the prosecution continued with a second day of witnesses in the federal kidnapping trial of Derick Brown.
abc3340.com
abc3340.com

11/15/22

On Tuesday, Federal prosecutors called several more witnesses, including two special agents, who discussed Derick Brown’s timeline based on surveillance videos.

Then we heard testimony from a fourteen-year-old who said Stallworth and Brown talked to her at an area middle school and offered her candy the day Cupcake was kidnapped.

Next on the stand was a woman who testified the defendant and Stallworth were parked in a cul-de-sac outside her residence. She talked about the conversation she had with Brown that day.

[..]

Sgt. Brown with the Birmingham Police Department took to the stand next. She was a homicide detective on the case. She testified to interviewing Derick Brown approximately four times. We saw clips from those videos.

In the interviews the story evolved. The defendant left out details the first time. Her story changed in the video clips we saw in court.

Later on in interviews, Brown tells detectives she saw Cupcake in the car. She later admitted to investigators Cupcake was alive in the apartment. Brown made accusations of a sexual assault she claims to have witnessed inside the apartment.

It was details from Derick Brown that led investigators to the dumpster with the child’s body ten days after she disappeared.

[..]

After that, they took a brief break to prepare the courtroom and called up the next witness, a former special agent with the FBI. Monitors were turned around so no one except for jurors could see pictures shown of Cupcakes body when she was found in the landfill.

[..]

The Government then called up another special agent who specializes in cell phone analysis.

The trial continues Wednesday.
 
NOV 17, 2022

Brown faces life in prison for the fatal abduction

UPDATE: A jury has decided Derick Brown is guilty in the abduction of Kamille "Cupcake" McKinney.

Brown was found guilty on both counts in the kidnapping case.

Brown faces a mandatory life in prison, and she showed no emotion when the verdict was read.

Derick Brown found guilty in federal kidnapping trial of Kamille 'Cupcake' McKinney

The jury begin its deliberation shortly after at 11:20 a.m. The verdict was reached around 12:40 p.m., after about an hour and 15 minutes.

Another conviction in the kidnapping and death of “Cupcake” McKinney

Jurors were given two options: decide whether brown was a bystander to Stallworth’s plan to kidnap cupcake McKinney, or if she actively participated in the crime.

“Multiple times that she had to stop it, there were plenty of times where she was left alone, and she didn’t,” said Assistant United States Attorney Lloyd Peeples.

According to federal prosecutors, Brown told police only things a kidnapper would know, such as the drugs found in cupcake’s body.
 
NOV 17, 2022

Derick Irisha Brown convicted of Kamille ‘Cupcake’ McKinney’s kidnapping death

[...]

Prior to Thursday’s verdict, attorneys on both sides presented their closing arguments.

Lloyd Peeples, chief of the U.S. Attorney’s Criminal Division, said beyond a reasonable doubt that Brown committed kidnapping and conspiracy of kidnapping.

“This trial is about the defendant and her actions,’’ Peeples said. “She knows the plan. She’s not about to let that little girl get away.”

[...]

“Kamille McKinney didn’t find a hand of safety,’’ Peeples said. “She didn’t find a hand to help her. She certainly didn’t find someone ‘minding their own business.’’'

“She found her kidnappers. She found a hand that covered her nose and mouth,’’ Peeples said. “She found evil. She didn’t find one monster, she found two.”

[...]

“When this defendant was left alone with Cupcake, with Patrick Stallworth at the Chevron gas station for at least 15 minutes, she should have rescued that girl. She did not,’’ he said. “Because of this defendant, she’s gone.”

[...]

Prosecutors presented more than 100 pieces of evidence and more than 20 witnesses during the three-day trial.

“We will never the exact horrors of what happened inside that apartment. But we know the defendant does,’’ Milner said. “We also know the defendant knows exactly what happened to her body. This defendant stripped this little girl of all her humanity. She removed her clothes…took her to that construction dumpster and dumped her in it.”

[...]
 
DEC 6, 2022
[...]

Stallworth, 42, and Brown, 32, were convicted in separate trials in October and November. Both were found guilty of kidnapping that resulted in death and conspiracy to kidnap a minor victim.

Chief U.S. District Court Judge L. Scott Coogler, who presided over both trials, on Tuesday issued orders setting Stallworth’s sentencing for 9:30 a.m. on Feb. 23, and Brown’s sentencing for 10:30 a.m. on Feb. 23.

[...]

Stallworth and Brown are facing up to 20 years in prison for their federal kidnapping charges. They are also facing capital murder charges in Jefferson County.

In both cases, the jury found McKinney’s kidnapping resulted in her death, which is an automatic life sentence without the possibility of parole.
 
MAR 3, 2023

Patrick Stallworth, Derick Brown get life without parole in Kamille ‘Cupcake’ McKinney’s

[...]

Assistant U.S. attorney Lloyd Peeples read a statement at Stallworth’s sentencing from Kamille’s mother, April Thomas, who cried as the statement was read.

[...]

“Did she call for me, her mother? I called for my Cupcake but she was gone because you took her. She never answered back and never came back because you took her, you took her life,” the statement continued.

Brown made a statement before her sentencing.

“Lord knows if I could back in time to that terrible day and change the outcome, I would,” Brown said.

[...]

“I don’t want you to picture me as the monster the media has made me out to be,” Brown said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Brittany Byrd read a lengthy statement from Thomas that said Brown, as a mother of six, should have known better and her motherly instinct should have kicked in.

“My family destroyed, and bonds permanently broken because you stole from us,” the statement read.

Thomas called Brown evil and dark. “No punishment or sentence is enough for what you did,” Thomas said. “You deserve everything that is coming your way and more.”

[...]

Both still face trials in state court on capital murder charges, where they could receive the death penalty if tried and convicted.

[...]
 
MAR 10, 2023

Derick Brown pleads not guilty to Kamille ‘Cupcake’ McKinney’s death due to ‘mental defect’ in state case

Derick Irisha Brown, charged with capital murder in the 2019 deadly abduction of 3-year-old Kamille “Cupcake” McKinney, is pleading not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect.

The 32-year-old Brown and Patrick Stallworth, 42, were in a Jefferson County courtroom Thursday, where they face state charges in Cupcake’s death. Both entered pleas of not guilty, and Brown additionally entered her plea of not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect.

[...]

The state pleas were entered before Jefferson County Circuit Judge Alaric May. The judge said the trials are expected to be held in 2024.

[...]
 

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