In October 2016, 4-year-old Kailee Bunrout died in the care of her mother’s boyfriend, Marquis Thomas. After she was reported unresponsive, police arrived at their Lansdale apartment to find Thomas performing CPR on the child. She was pronounced dead less than an hour later.
After an autopsy, her cause of death was listed as undetermined.
But when her 8-year-old brother, D.B., ended up at CHOP two years later, investigators say his injuries — hemorrhages and bruising on his lower eyelid — were consistent with child abuse. Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele said a review of medical records showed his injuries were also similar to his sister’s.
“So that caused medical personnel and our detectives to take a hard look at this and make the determinations that this is murder,” he added.
During an interview between investigators and the boy in February, he disclosed that Thomas had choked him on multiple occasions by placing his "arm around his neck and made him lay with his face in the couch," according to a release.
The boy also said on the night before his sister's death, he saw a crying Kailee walk into the bathroom with Thomas.
Thomas, 32, of Needham Circle in Hatfield, was charged with abusing the boy in March. While he was in jail, investigators went back over his sister’s information, declaring she died by blunt impact trauma and strangulation. Her manner of death was changed to homicide.
Thomas is charged with first-degree murder, and a preliminary hearing is scheduled for next week.