Thursday, Nov. 12, 2009

NC mom charged with killing baby could face death

SPRING LAKE, N.C. -- Prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty against a North Carolina woman accused of killing her 11-month-old daughter and hiding her body in an attic.

WRAL-TV reported that 27-year-old Johni Michelle Heuser of Lillington will face the death penalty if she is convicted in the 2007 death of Harmony Jade Creech.

The child's father, Army Sgt. Ronald Earl Creech II, returned from Iraq in October 2007 to find his 11-month-old daughter missing. Police say Heuser told him the baby had been abducted.

Authorities say Harmony died three to five weeks before her skeletal remains were found in a diaper box in the attic of the couple's home. Medical examiners were unable to determine the cause of death but prosecutors say they have evidence that the child starved to death.