Teh One Who Knocks
08-15-2011, 11:14 PM
By the CNN Wire Staff
(CNN) -- A 43-year-old Missouri man told police that he suffocated his 3-year-old neighbor with a plastic bag, then stuffed her body in the same bag and tossed her from a highway, according to a court document.
Shawn Morgan of Senath has been charged with first-degree murder in the death of Breeann Rodriguez.
The girl was last seen on August 6, riding her pink bicycle with her brother outside their home in Senath. While authorities have found her bike, authorities continued to search Monday for her body, Dunklin County Prosecuting Attorney Stephen Sokoloff said.
Sokoloff added -- and the Dunklin County court clerk's office confirmed -- that Morgan does not yet have an attorney. His legal representation could be settled when he is arraigned in a Kennett, Missouri, court at 9 a.m. Tuesday, the prosecuting attorney said.
According to a probable cause affidavit dated Saturday, police interviewed Morgan Friday at the police department in Kennett, a larger community about 10 miles northeast of Senath.
The suspect said that he spotted the girl standing on a ladder by the pool in his backyard, in Breeann's neighborhood. He told police that he grabbed the girl and carried her inside his house.
There, according to the affidavit, the man "suffocated the girl with a white plastic trash bag, by holding it over her face and mouth.
"Morgan states that he felt like it took an hour for the girl to die," the document adds.
It says Morgan told police he put the girl's body into the same trash bag, and then drove to Missouri's Highway 164 and got rid of the body by throwing it over a railing into a floodway ditch.
After returning home, Morgan said, he then dismantled the girl's bike and dumped it into another, related waterway, the document says.
A bicycle was recovered there and identified by Edgar Rodriguez as belonging to Breeann, his daughter. Police said Thursday that they had found two training wheels similar to those on the girl's bike.
In addition to murder, Sokoloff said in a statement Saturday that Morgan is charged with armed criminal action and tampering with physical evidence.
The suspect, who Sokoloff said had three children of his own, is being held at the Dunklin County Justice Center.
The FBI, which earlier had a major role in the case, has passed off control of the investigation to local authorities following Morgan's arrest, FBI spokeswoman Rebecca Wu said.
Meanwhile, the approximately 1,800 residents of Senath -- a city in southeast Missouri's "boot heel," about 90 miles north of Memphis, Tennessee -- are trying to come to grips with what happened.
"Senath is a small town with the typical small-town concerns and values," Sokoloff told CNN. "This has been very, very disturbing to the community as a whole."
(CNN) -- A 43-year-old Missouri man told police that he suffocated his 3-year-old neighbor with a plastic bag, then stuffed her body in the same bag and tossed her from a highway, according to a court document.
Shawn Morgan of Senath has been charged with first-degree murder in the death of Breeann Rodriguez.
The girl was last seen on August 6, riding her pink bicycle with her brother outside their home in Senath. While authorities have found her bike, authorities continued to search Monday for her body, Dunklin County Prosecuting Attorney Stephen Sokoloff said.
Sokoloff added -- and the Dunklin County court clerk's office confirmed -- that Morgan does not yet have an attorney. His legal representation could be settled when he is arraigned in a Kennett, Missouri, court at 9 a.m. Tuesday, the prosecuting attorney said.
According to a probable cause affidavit dated Saturday, police interviewed Morgan Friday at the police department in Kennett, a larger community about 10 miles northeast of Senath.
The suspect said that he spotted the girl standing on a ladder by the pool in his backyard, in Breeann's neighborhood. He told police that he grabbed the girl and carried her inside his house.
There, according to the affidavit, the man "suffocated the girl with a white plastic trash bag, by holding it over her face and mouth.
"Morgan states that he felt like it took an hour for the girl to die," the document adds.
It says Morgan told police he put the girl's body into the same trash bag, and then drove to Missouri's Highway 164 and got rid of the body by throwing it over a railing into a floodway ditch.
After returning home, Morgan said, he then dismantled the girl's bike and dumped it into another, related waterway, the document says.
A bicycle was recovered there and identified by Edgar Rodriguez as belonging to Breeann, his daughter. Police said Thursday that they had found two training wheels similar to those on the girl's bike.
In addition to murder, Sokoloff said in a statement Saturday that Morgan is charged with armed criminal action and tampering with physical evidence.
The suspect, who Sokoloff said had three children of his own, is being held at the Dunklin County Justice Center.
The FBI, which earlier had a major role in the case, has passed off control of the investigation to local authorities following Morgan's arrest, FBI spokeswoman Rebecca Wu said.
Meanwhile, the approximately 1,800 residents of Senath -- a city in southeast Missouri's "boot heel," about 90 miles north of Memphis, Tennessee -- are trying to come to grips with what happened.
"Senath is a small town with the typical small-town concerns and values," Sokoloff told CNN. "This has been very, very disturbing to the community as a whole."