Mom charged after body of her 6-month-old found near wooded area

By KCTV Staff

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    KANSAS CITY, Missouri (KCTV) — Prosecutors have filed a criminal charge against the mother of a baby whose body was found in the woods on Mother’s Day weekend.

Raeleena Barlett was charged with abandonment of a corpse, a felony. Her 6-month-old daughter, Kha’liya Bridgewater, was found deceased near a wooded area near 40th and Pittman Road on May 13.

Probable cause documents alleged that Barlett had reported two days afterward that her child had died, but she did not go into detail the circumstances surrounding the girl’s death.

She told investigators that on May 6, she had woken up to Kha’liya being dead in her bed when she said she found the child cold and stiff. A witness said Barlett died in her sleep from sudden infant death syndrome.

Barlett insisted that she did not know how her daughter’s body ended up abandoned in the field.

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