Investigation into 11-month-old's death

STRAWBERRY MANSION - November 21, 2009 (WPVI) -- Homicide detectives are investigating the suspicious death of an 11-month-old baby in the city's Strawberry Mansion section.

Police say the incident occurred at around 6:45 a.m. when the father called 911 after he found the 11-month-old Joshua Brown unconscious in the bedroom.

Medics arrived to at the house located on the 2200 block of Edgley Street.

Joshua was rushed to Temple Hospital where the baby boy was pronounced dead a short time later.

The boy's mother, Karen Brown, was not home at the time, but Joshua's 3-year-old sister Danika was.

37-year-old Karen is the mother of Joshua, Danika, and four other children, and she says she has spent the last three weeks at a girlfriend's house after alleging her boyfriend, Clavon Gallop, and father of the two young children, was physically abusive to her.

Karen's aunt, Dahlia Thompson, got the call from police Saturday morning about Joshua's death.

"I think he just snapped because he'd been with them for three weeks while she was gone," Dahlia said.

Both Karen and Dahlia say they heard Danika blame her father for her brother's death, adding police described the baby's deadly injuries.

"Police say all the blows were on the baby's face," Dahlia said.

Relatives say they warned Karen about the children's father.

"I said Karen don't take him back," grandmother Juanita Brissett said.

No formal charges have been filed. Apparently, there were other adults in the house Saturday morning and indications are the child's father is blaming one woman for the baby's death.

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