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Derren Morris, of Mount Vernon, made an appearance at the Westchester County Courthouse on Monday, after pleading not guilty to second-degree murder and first-degree manslaughter and second-degree assault at a previous appearance in 2017.
Morris allegedly “repeatedly and forcefully struck 2-year-old Addison Turner about the abdomen. This force trauma inflicted by (Morris) caused multiple contusions, a lacerated liver, mesentery contusions and severe internal bleeding, which resulted in the child’s death,” on July 5, 2017, according to the indictment.
On the same day, while he was reportedly taking care of his girlfriend’s children for several hours at his South Third Avenue apartment, Morris also allegedly struck Turner’s twin sister, putting her in the hospital in critical condition, police said.
On Monday, lawyers for Morris reportedly blamed the mother, Monique Turner, stating that she had done something to her twin daughters. Turner returned home on the day in question to find her daughter not breathing. Morris drove them to Montefiore Mount Vernon Hospital, where Addison Turner was pronounced dead. The Medical Examiner would determine that her cause of death was internal bleeding from a lacerated liver.
Morris was living with his father in a basement apartment on South Third Avenue, and the girls moved in with them because they were suffering from lead poisoning contracted in their Bridgeport, Connecticut home, according to lohud. He is currently being held at the Westchester County Jail and is due back in court to answer the charges later this year.
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