Father In Minnesota Admits He’s Responsible For 3-Month-Old Daughter’s 2009 Death, Police say

A Minnesota man allegedly admitted he was responsible for killing his newborn daughter over 13 years ago, authorities said.

On July 8, police in Anoka arrested Benjamin Alexander Russell, 37, on second-degree murder and first-degree manslaughter charges in connection to the January 2009 death of 3-month-old Suvanna LeeAnn Kreye-Russell.

Russell, now a father of two children under the age of 2, recently told the baby’s mother that their little girl was crying in her crib while he was watching her in Coon Rapids and he “couldn’t handle it,” so he placed a pillow over her face to “muffle the sound,” a criminal complaint obtained by KSTP-TV states.

He allegedly told the baby’s mother that he then held the pillow over the infant's face before going outside to smoke a cigarette.

When Russell returned around an hour later, an arrest warrant reads, he said he discovered his daughter had turned blue and he called emergency responders for help. The child was rushed to a local hospital, where she was declared dead.

After the baby died, however, he claimed to investigators he was watching his daughter while the mother was at work and alleged he found the infant unresponsive and facedown in a blanket he had used to prop up a bottle next to her, police said.

The warrant states the child’s death was determined at the time to be caused by “positional asphyxia/suffocation.”

Russell was being held in the Anoka County Jail.