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INFANT SLAYING CASE: NO BOND FOR ACCUSED DAD

By Ray King/OF THE COMMERCIAL STAFF
Tuesday, April 22, 2008 9:32 AM CDT

The father of an infant who died under what police called “suspicious circumstances” Friday will be held without bond while prosecutors consider filing capital murder charges.

Francisco Razo, 20, was accused of causing the death of Javier Razo, two months, who was found unresponsive and not breathing after police and emergency medical personnel were sent to a house in the 1300 block of South Cedar Street Friday morning.

Circuit Judge Jodi Dennis on Monday agreed to a request by prosecutors for the no bond order, after Deputy Prosecutor Maxie Kizer outlined some of the details of the case.

The infant was taken to Jefferson Regional Medical Center where a doctor in the emergency room pronounced him dead at 11:07 a.m. Chief Deputy Coroner Chad Kelley said the body was sent to the state Medical Examiner’s Office to determine “the cause and manner of death.”

The slaying was the ninth of the year in Jefferson County and the third inside the Pine Bluff city limits.

Kizer told Dennis that the first arriving officers reported the baby’s grandmother said she found the infant “cold and attempted to perform CPR,” after calling 9-1-1.

Razo was not at the house when police arrived, Kizer said, but returned later with the child’s mother, who had been at work.

Kizer said the mother told officers that when she left to go to work at 6 a.m., the “baby was fine.”

When Razo was interviewed at the house, Kizer said he told officers he had checked on the infant and was getting ready to feed him when he noticed the child was “cold” and went to the grandparents’ room to tell them he needed help.

In a subsequent interview at the detective office after waiving his right to an attorney, Kizer quoted Razo as telling police he was home with the baby on April 16, and when the child wouldn’t stop crying, “bit the baby on the left arm

“On Friday, he said the baby was crying again and he accidentally placed his hands on the baby’s head and held them there until the infant stopped breathing,” Kizer said.

Pine Bluff attorney John Kearney appeared at the hearing with Razo, telling the court he had been hired by the family a short time earlier, and had spoken to Razo briefly before the hearing began.

Police said they are continuing their investigation into the death, which was the second in the Pine Bluff city limits in two days.

Last Wednesday, Ricky L. Williams, 28, was shot to death in the yard of a house at 4106 W. Short 4th Ave., at approximately 3 a.m.

At a court hearing Friday, Dennis ruled prosecutors had probable cause to charge Veontrage Smith, 23, of Pine Bluff with first-degree murder in that slaying. Bond for Smith was set at $150,000.

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