Background: The inside of the Greene County Jail in Springfield, Missouri (Greene County Sheriff”s Office). Inset: Miguel Simmons (Greene County Sheriff’s Office).
A Missouri father has confessed to placing a pillow over his infant daughter’s face, insisting it was only for a brief moment, “a few minutes max,” according to local authorities.
According to court documents from Greene County, Miguel Simmons is facing charges of child endangerment. The incident unfolded on Monday when a witness entered a room in Simmons’ Springfield home and noticed a pillow on the bed that appeared to be “wiggling.”
Upon removing the “regular-sized” sleeping pillow, the witness discovered Simmons’ baby girl, who is less than two months old, underneath it. The witness expressed concern that the infant “would not have been able to breathe” under the pillow.
A probable cause statement, as reviewed by Law&Crime, indicated that the pillow was “larger” than the baby.
When officers arrived to investigate, Simmons interrupted their conversation with the witness, according to the court documents. “She’s fine, she’s lying … she’s alive,” Simmons stated along with other remarks deemed unintelligible by authorities. He admitted, “I just put the pillow over her head just for a few min…, for a few seconds … for a few minutes max.”
Simmons further explained, “I just changed her diaper, I just fed her, I did put the pillow on her face for a few min, for a few seconds because I don’t want her to listen to this music,” clarifying his reason for the action.
“There was loud music,” he said, adding that there were “all these bad words.” Simmons continued, saying he himself was playing loud music and “people were screaming in the living room.” It is unclear who all the other people in the home were, but Simmons lived with his “baby momma,” the infant, and two other witnesses.
In the defendant’s words, the baby was “breathing,” not crying, and “fine,” and he just wanted her to sleep. Still, he made a startling admission about the pillow.
“I know that she can die from that but I didn’t want to put it for a long time,” Simmons said, according to the court statement. He was arrested and booked into the Greene County Jail.
The following day, officers arrived at the facility to speak with him again.
Simmons, who was born in 2000, gave more details about his state of mind on the day of the incident. He said he had just gotten home from work when he saw the witness — the same person who would later discover the baby under the pillow — in the living room playing loud music and smoking marijuana with the baby also present.
As a result, Simmons moved the baby into his bedroom, laid her on the bed and covered her in a blanket. After he changed his clothes, he placed a pillow on the child, adamantly stating that it only went up to her chin, authorities recounted. He stated that his intention was not to hurt the girl.
He continued, saying the two of them lay on the bed “for a short time” until the original witness came in to give the man his dinner. When she entered, she “freaked out and began yelling at him saying he was trying to kill” the baby. He did not recognize any injuries on the child, and authorities made no mention of the child being injured.
Though Simmons maintained the baby’s face was not blocked by the pillow, when an investigator asked him what the purpose of it was, “he said it was to keep her nice and warm for when she slept so she could feel like someone was holding her, and to prevent her from smelling the smoke of the marijuana and hearing the noises of the music.”
The officer writing the probable cause statement added: “I asked Simmons if how the pillow was positioned helped with blocking the smell and noise, and he said yes.” Furthermore, Simmons reportedly added that “he did not know it was a crime to place a pillow” on the victim and “because he was a first-time father, he did not know any better.”
Simmons is being held on a $25,000 bond. It is unclear when he is scheduled to appear in court.
