March 05, 2020 - 3:24 PM
MILWAUKEE - A Milwaukee man already charged with fatally shooting his girlfriend last year was charged Thursday with killing the couple's 2-year-old daughter.
Dariaz Higgins, 35, was charged in Minnesota with unintentional second-degree murder in the death of Noelani Robinson. The girl's body was found last March in a blanket in a highway ditch in southern Minnesota.
Charging documents in Mower County say she died of multiple blunt force injuries to the head.
After dumping the girl's body, Higgins allegedly returned to Milwaukee to meet her mother, 24-year-old Sierra Robinson. Prosecutors say he brought Robinson to an apartment where he claimed the girl was and then he fatally shot her. The girl's body was found days later.
A message The Associated Press left with Higgins' attorney in Milwaukee wasn't immediately returned.
According to a criminal complaint, Higgins and the toddler stayed at a hotel in Austin from Feb. 6 to about March 10. Higgins told investigators the girl fell off a toilet in the hotel and died, and he wrapped her in blankets and left her on the floor for a couple of days while he went to Milwaukee to get a vehicle, the Star Tribune reported.
Higgins returned to Austin on March 10, put the girl's body in the vehicle and drove toward Minneapolis in blizzard conditions. Higgins, who was with a female passenger, said he put Noelani's body in a ditch because he knew she was dead and "could not travel with her,” the complaint said.
News from © The Associated Press, 2020