Inset, left to right: Kimora Launmei Hodges (Roseville Police Department) and her victim, 23-month-old Kyrie (GoFundMe). Background: The area in Michigan where Hodges lived when she killed the victim (Google Maps).
A 24-year-old woman in Michigan is facing a likely long-term prison sentence for the death of a 23-month-old boy she was babysitting, by violently throwing the toddler against a wall, resulting in a fatal head injury.
A jury in Macomb County convicted Kimora Launmei Hodges of murder in the 2022 death of young Kyrie Starks, according to a report from Detroit NBC affiliate WDIV.
As previously covered by Law&Crime, officers from the Roseville Police Department responded to a local hospital on June 22, 2022, after staff reported the admission of a young boy with severe head trauma.
The child’s mother contacted authorities after retrieving her son from Hodges’ residence on the 30000 block of Little Mack Avenue. Hodges, a close neighbor, had been babysitting the child periodically over the past few months while the mother was at work.
Hodges had informed the mother that the child was not acting normally. The mother hurried to Hodges’ residence, where she discovered her son in critical condition.
“Once I made it there my baby was on the ground having seizure, after seizure, after seizure,” she previously told Detroit Fox affiliate WJBK.
Hodges attempted to blame the boy’s condition to an “allergic reaction” to him “eating soap,” the mother wrote on a GoFundMe page for her son. The boy’s mother said that she initially thought Hodges was telling the truth about her son having an allergic reaction until the medical staff at the hospital explained the full extent of the boy’s physical injuries.
“I believed her until the doctors told me otherwise because i trusted her i feel so betrayed cause i would’ve done anything for [Hodges] & her daughter,” she wrote, noting that Hodges’ child was the same age as the victim.
The victim arrived at the hospital at about 2 a.m. on June 14, 2022, court documents show.
“He had blunt force trauma to the head and he was bleeding out his ears and had to have immediate brain surgery,” the mother told WJBK. “All I know is she threw my son into the wall and shook him up pretty bad and they said that’s just a bit of what she did to him.”
Police placed Hodges under arrest at about 7:50 a.m., just hours after the victim was admitted to the hospital. Investigators said that Hodges went on to admit that she physically abused the toddler while she was “watching” him for the mother.
“That’s not what was not supposed to happen,” she told detectives during the subsequent interview, per court documents. “You all just want me to blame. You all just want me to say I put my anger on [the victim]. That’s not what it is.”
Hodges went on to say, “Maybe I hit him too hard, but I didn’t take my anger out on him.”
Authorities initially charged Hodges with first-degree child abuse. However, the charge was upgraded to murder after the victim succumbed to his injuries and was pronounced dead on Wednesday, June 15, 2022.
Hodges is currently scheduled to appear in court for her sentencing hearing on Oct. 2. She faces up to life in prison, the Detroit News reported.
