CHICAGO – A 9-month-old girl is dead after a relative cut her throat with a power saw, a Chicago police official with knowledge of the investigation said Monday.
Officers found the child after being called Monday morning to a building on the city's West Side.
The police official confirmed media reports that a 52-year-old relative used a circular saw to cut the baby's throat, apparently because the girl wouldn't stop crying. The official spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because an official autopsy had not been performed.
The official said the woman is in police custody at a hospital with self-inflicted wounds.
Police said both the baby and the woman were found by another relative.
Illinois Department of Children and Family Services officials said the agency had no prior contact with the family. Authorities said no other children were present in the home at the time of the incident.
Ben Llamas works with the child's father and drove him to the scene. Llamas told the Chicago Tribune the father was upset but did not talk about what happened.
His friend had moved in to that house about a year ago with a woman, Llamas said. Together the couple had a young child.
"At first, he was reluctant, but when the baby came, he fell in love," Llamas said. "He shows us pictures of that baby every day."
Neighbors said several people live in the home where the baby was found.
"They were really good people," Francisco Arreola told the Chicago Tribune in Spanish. "I would always see them and they were very happy. I never heard them fight or anything."
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