Justin Whited and his wife Jamie, the dad and mom of the now-deceased five-month-old baby, Dinah Paige Whited, have been behind bars since April. They have been charged in what police said was the brutal, heartless beating of the little girl, according to accounts in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution .
But even though Justin, 23, is suspected of doling out the savagery that put his little daughter in the hospital and ultimately left her brain dead, Jamie, 24, was charged with neglect because police claimed she failed to seek help for her severely injured baby.
On Monday, the couple was allowed out of their cells on to pay a final goodbye visit to Dinah before doctors turned off her life-support devices, and she finally passed away.
Baby Dinah Paige Whitehead to have her life support turned off, and allegedly abusive parents Justin Whited and Ja… https://t.co/NC9DyTiBlu
— News, Views, People. (@NVPeople) August 8, 2016
Justin Whited refused for three months to allow the doctors to let the baby go as he may have feared that he would be charged with murder as soon as Dinah was pronounced dead. The child was finally pronounced dead just after 3 p.m. on Monday at Henrietta Egleston Hospital for Children in Atlanta, Georgia, according to a report by WTVM TV News .
The two parents visited their baby separately for a half-hour each, and the solo visits were reportedly requested by Jamie Whited.
Both Justin and Jamie Whited deny playing any part in causing their baby’s death. The couple has been together since high school, and they also have a two-year-old son.
The following video news report by WSB TV contains further details on the heartbreaking case of Baby Dinah and her accused parents.
This tragic story, according to the Journal-Constitution reports , began on the morning of April 23 at their home in Monroe, Georgia, about an hour east of Atlanta. Justin and Jamie both claim they woke to hear little Dinah gasping for breath and crying.
Then, moments later, as they told police, the baby stopped breathing.
When doctors examined the critically injured baby, they found that Dinah experienced bleeding on the brain, according to an Associated Press report , as well as two broken collar bones and numerous broken ribs. In fact. only three of the little girl’s ribs were not broken. Doctors described Dinah’s brain injuries as “catastrophic.”
Paramedics and police arrived to find Justin attempting CPR on the baby on the kitchen floor. But according to a police report by an officer at the home, there was something strange about the young parents’ behavior.
“As I was talking with Justin and Jamie Whited, I was a little puzzled that they weren’t showing any emotions,” the reporting officer stated. “Mr. Whited appeared to be calm and collected and Ms. Whited had been standing in the doorway, emotionless.”
Although neighbors said that the Whited couple “seemed like good people,” and Justin Whited’s mother, Kimberlee Page, said that the young couple never had serious problems, a different picture emerged from the Journal-Constitution reporting and from accounts by Jamie’s mother, Paige Cason-Barrett.
TODAY AT 4: Baby Dinah’s parents charged with murder: https://t.co/XKT8Hw61fp pic.twitter.com/YTj9Lmyfpz
— WSB-TV (@wsbtv) August 9, 2016
The couple had been using drugs, the reports stated, and Jamie was on probation on a methamphetamine possession charge. Their abuse of prescription painkillers, according to the reports, made their marital problems worse.
Justin, Jamie’s mother said, became highly controlling, once pushing Jamie into a wall so hard while she was pregnant that the hole remains in the wall in their Monroe home to this day.
“I didn’t know how abusive he was to my daughter,” Cason-Bennett told the Journal-Constitution , saying that Justin controlled who Jamie spoke to, and he was overcome with irrational jealousy over small and insignificant things.
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Jamie Whited later told police that on the day that Baby Dinah was rushed to the hospital, she had taken the prescription narcotic, Lortab. She also admitted that she had seen her baby daughter with bruises and black eyes, but she did nothing because she feared that the state would take her children away.
Both Justin and Jamie Whitehead have now been formally charged with murder in the death of Baby Dinah. Both have entered pleas of not guilty and continue to deny the charges.
[Image via Walton County Sheriff’s Office | GoFundMe]