WASHINGTON — After a yearlong investigation by D.C. police, a Maryland woman was arrested Tuesday in her 1-year-old daughter’s March 2017 death.
Faneshia Scott, 28, of Upper Marlboro was arrested Tuesday by the Capital Area Regional Fugitive Task Force in the death, the D.C. police said in a statement.
Rhythm Fields was found unconscious on a living room floor in Southeast D.C. on March 21, 2017. By the time first responders and civilians came to her aid, the police said, she had been dead for hours.
In January, the chief medical examiner found that Fields had died from multiple blunt force injuries. The case was then determined to be a homicide. The police said Tuesday that Fields had 23 old and new rib fractures; contusions and abrasions of the head, neck, torso and extremities, and a subdural hemorrhage.
Scott told a D.C. detective that she gave Rhythm a cough syrup with dextromethorphan. The police said the bottle read that it was not to be given to children under 12 years old. Dextromethorphan was detected in Fields’ body and in her sippy cup.
Scott is also accused of beating her two other young children. She’s been charged with two counts of first-degree felony murder, with aggravating circumstances, and seven counts of first-degree cruelty to children.
A spokesperson for the chief medical examiner declined to give specific details as to why there was such a long period of time between the child’s death and the determination of how she died.
