A man whom prosecutors alleged ignored his infant daughter’s serious medical emergency at their Delk Road-area apartment last year was found guilty of second-degree murder on Tuesday.
The Cobb District Attorney’s office said Sidrick Raymone Melancon Sr., 32, was convicted by a Cobb Superior Court jury of all the charges against him, including murder in the second degree, cruelty to children in the second degree, and two counts of influencing a witness.
He is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 21, and could get up to 50 years in prison.
He was charged after dropping off his daughter to an urgent care location on Aug. 5, 2017 after she was unresponsive and purplish, then leaving the scene with another person to run errands and go to a liquor store, according to prosecutors.
They said at the trial that Melancon delivered the girl’s body “like a sack of potatoes” and that doctors found Laura Higgenbotham, who was 10 months old, suffering from massive bleeding on her brain. She also had bleeding in the eye, some neck trauma and leg fractures, according to testimony presented at the trial.
The child was rushed to WellStar Kennestone Hospital, then airlifted to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta before doctors declared her brain dead and removed her from life support, according to prosecutors.
The girl’s mother, Sadai Higgenbotham, 27, texted Melancon the morning of Aug. 5 from her Collingwood Drive apartment that she was unable to wake the child, the Cobb DA’s office said. Sadai Higgenbotham is awaiting trial and also is facing murder and other charges in connection with her daughter’s death.
Melancon was arrested on Aug. 8 and has remained in the Cobb County Adult Detention Center without bond since then.
Also living at the apartment was Melancon’s long-time girlfriend and three children he fathered with her. The woman had threatened to call the Department of Family and Children’s Services for what prosecutors said was Sadai Higgenbotham’s treatment of her daughter.
At his trial, Melancon testified he did not know Laura Higgenbotham was his child at the time of her death. Prosecutors said that investigators reviewed text messages between Melancon and Sadai Higgenbotham and his girlfriend, and alleged that he had asked both of them to lie to police.
According to one of the messages presented at the trial, Melancon said: “I didn’t do anything to that baby, but I didn’t do anything for that baby. So . . . that’s on me.”
Said Cobb assistant district attorney Drew Healy, who tried the case: “This man saw, heard, and was told about everything happening to this defenseless child. Despite all of these warnings, the defendant ignored them, and shut down the opportunities for this child’s life to be saved.”
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