A Michigan woman previously charged with murdering her young daughter is now accused of killing her 2-month-old son and abusing her now 6-year-old daughter, officials said Tuesday.
Irene Whitehead, 27, was arrested in late November, more than two months after 2-year-old Ryleigh Whitehead was found unresponsive at their home in Cedar Springs and later pronounced dead.
Whitehead was charged with first-degree child abuse and felony murder in connection with Ryleigh’s death on Nov. 25. When speaking with investigators, Whitehead reportedly confessed to suffocating Ryleigh with a bag and revealed she had also killed her son, Leo, in 2021.
“She identified a number of similarities with the manner of their death in her statement, but more specifically, she stated that she had killed both Ryleigh and Leo,” Kent County Sheriff Michelle Lajoye-Young said at the time, according to the local CBS affiliate WWMT.
The boy’s death was initially attributed to “parainfluenza viral-type pneumonia,” but investigators reopened the case following Ryleigh’s death.
“Over the course of the investigation, we highlighted some additional information that needed further investigation,” Lajoye-Young said at a press conference Tuesday afternoon while providing an update on the case.
Additional charges stemming from two different cases have been filed against Whitehead, according to Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Elizabeth Bartlett. Whitehead now faces two counts of felony murder and two counts of first-degree child abuse for allegedly killing Ryleigh and Leo, Bartlett said at the briefing.
“An additional charge of second-degree child abuse has been filed in the case of Kina Whitehead,” related to the abuse of another of Whitehead’s children that began when she was 6 months old and continued over the years, Bartlett told reporters.
Prosecutors would not comment on what type of abuse the 6-year-old girl suffered, but according to Bartlett, both Kina and a fourth child are currently in the custody of their fathers.
