Darius Myrick
Aliyah Myrick
Man In Psych Ward; Daughter Found Dead
CINCINNATI -- A Tri-State man is in the psychiatric ward of a local hospital, accused of killing his young daughter and then dumping her body in a park, News 5 reported.
Darius Myrick allegedly made threatening comments about his 19-month-old daughter,
Aliyah, and then took her from her mother late Thursday, police said.
"I heard someone screaming, 'He stole my baby. Please call the police,'" neighbor Elizabeth Morgan said. "When I looked o
ut, I saw a black male carrying the baby, running down the street."
Morgan tried to help Aliyah's mother,
Lanetta Myrick, get the child back.
"I c
ame outside and tried to chase the guy in my car, and the mother got in my car," Morgan said.
They caught up with Darius Myrick down the block.
"At that point, we got out and tried to coax him into giving us the child," Morgan said. "He wouldn't, so we called 911."
Police issued an Amber Alert for Aliyah Myrick overnight Thursday, and a man who said he knows Darius Myrick told police he saw him near Inwood Park in Mount Auburn Friday morning.
"We grew up down the street, and this is the park we would hang out at," his sister,
Danyelle Myrick, said.
He was later arrested at Central Parkway and Vine Street.
Police said they recovered the child's body in the park just more than an hour later.
"She's laying with her head towa
rd V
ine Street and her body facing south," Chief Tom Streicher said. "I couldn't see any obvious of trauma."
He also said it appeared that Aliyah had been dead for a few hours.
Police said Darius Myrick will face charges once he's released from t
he hospital.
'He Should've Gotten Help'
Several people close to the case told News 5 that Myrick had been acting strangely -- not only over the past few days, but ever since he wrapped up a seven-year stint with the U.S. Coast Guard.
"When he got out of the service, something was wrong with him," Danyelle Myrick said. "He should've gotten help then."
Myrick signed a court document last year using the name Jesus Christ, and in the basement of his McMicken Street apartment, he would sleep on a cardboard bed in a storage room scattered with pornography magazines -- and a Bible.
"He didn't exhibit normal behavior,"
Corry Owens, Myrick
's c
ousin, said. "He was erratic. I think he's delusional."
Morgan said Myrick was showing some of this behavior when she confronted him with his wife, Lanetta.
"He was saying, mumbling, something like, 'She's the devil,' talking about the mom, saying, 'She's the devil,' and some other nonsense I couldn't really make out," M
organ said.
"He referred to baby's mother as being Satan, so [Aliyah] is daughter of Satan," Streicher said.
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Memo to spook: BOO!
T.N.B.