One day after a South Side girl died in her Stateway Gardens apartment, Chicago police Thursday arrested her father on murder charges, saying he beat the 5-year-old girl to death because she had not finished all her schoolwork.
Makeisha Huff, of the 3600 block of South Federal Street, had been dead for several hours when police and firefighters were called shortly before 9 a.m. to her second-floor apartment in the Chicago Housing Authority development, where she lives with her father, his girlfriend and four brothers and sisters.
Makeisha was found on the floor, and she could not be resuscitated. About an hour later, the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services received a call to its hot line reporting the father had beaten the child, said DCFS spokesman Chris Welch.
The Cook County medical examiner’s office said on Thursday that Makeisha died of multiple blunt trauma and multiple injuries and ruled her death a homicide.
An autopsy showed extensive bruises over Makeisha’s entire body as well as evidence of a longer pattern of abuse, said Officer Pat Camden, a police spokesman.
Richard Huff, 36, was charged with first-degree murder after police said he admitted hitting, kicking and beating his daughter with a belt Tuesday night.
He apparently was unable to awaken her for school on Wednesday morning.
DCFS officials are investigating and have taken protective custody of Makeisha’s siblings–a 3-year-old boy and girls ages 1, 2 and 6, said Welch.
The children live in the apartment with their father and his girlfriend who, Welch said, is the mother of three of the four surviving children. He said Huff had custody of the children. The girlfriend was not charged, said Camden.
Welch said DCFS had not dealt with the father in the past. The agency’s only case with the children involved a complaint in 1996 that the father’s sister left the two older children alone when she was baby-sitting them.
The family moved into their apartment at Stateway Gardens about 18 months ago, said Cecelia Smith, a neighbor who helped them find the apartment.
She said the family kept to itself and the children rarely played outside.
“They almost never came outside,” said Smith. “They didn’t interact with other kids.”
