Last week in Kansas City a child died from severe abuse. Why was no one arrested?

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More than a week after a 7-month-old baby in Kansas City died from injuries resulting from severe abuse, police have yet to make an arrest or even name a suspect in the case.

Giovanni Carr, known as Gio, was hospitalized with serious injuries on June 15 and died in the early morning hours of June 20.

The Kansas City Police Department has deemed Gio’s death suspicious. Detectives investigating the child’s final hours have been classified as a death investigation, not a homicide, KCPD spokesman Sgt. Phil DiMartino told The Star.

DiMartino said police detectives are currently awaiting lab results on Gio Carr’s body.

In anticipation of his death, Gio’s family prepares for the funeral and mourns together.

“I swear I will fight for you,” Armoni Carr, Giovanni’s mother, wrote on social media on Thursday in a eulogy for her son. “I’m so broken.”

Death of Gio Carrão

Giovanni Armon D’Angelo Carr was the first and only child of 20-year-old Armon Carr. The Kansas City, Kansas, resident raised Gio as a single mother, according to social media posts.

“This is Armoni’s first child,” Armoni Carr’s aunt, Thea Harris, told The Star last week. “He really didn’t deserve this… it’s so unbearable.”

Carr declined to speak directly to The Star.

Harris told The Star that Giovanni Carr was in the care of his godmother when he was allegedly injured. The godmother was Carr’s best friend at the time and had watched Gio before, but never on her own, Harris told The Star last week.

“They’ve always been together,” Harris told The Star. “They’ve been friends for over a decade.”

The Star did not name the alleged godmother because she had not been arrested or charged as of June 28.

Carr and her family say Gio was uninjured when his godmother picked him up around 4:30 p.m. on June 15.

Carr placed Gio in the care of his godmother so she could go on her first shift at her new job, The Star previously reported. Carr started working at Amazon on July 15, according to Harris.

The baby remained in the woman’s care for nearly 7 hours.

Armoni Carr texted Gio’s godmother to check on her son on June 15 around 9:15 p.m. After about 11:15 p.m., the godmother responded again around 11:30 p.m., saying that Gio had fallen ill and was “breathing strangely.”

Gio Carr was taken to the hospital around 11:30 a.m. June 15 from a home in the 5300 block of Olive Street in the Blue Hills neighborhood of Kansas City. As The Star previously reported, his godmother called an ambulance.

Armoni Carr met Gio at a local hospital around 4 a.m. June 16, after her shift at work, Harris told The Star.

Hospital staff said the child “suffered significant bodily injuries,” according to Officer Alayna Gonzalez, a spokeswoman for the Kansas City Police Department. Harris said Gio was taken to the hospital on June 15 with brain, eye and liver injuries. Gio also had broken ribs, a lacerated spleen and burns to his foot.

Spleen injuries are typically caused by blunt trauma to the upper chest, around the left ribs, according to the Cleveland Clinic. Most rib fractures are also caused by blunt trauma to the chest, according to the National Library of Medicine.

Baby Gio was pronounced dead at 1:59 a.m. on June 20.

Investigation into Gio’s death

The Kansas City Police Department is still actively investigating Gio Carr’s death, DiMartino told The Star. DiMartino said that’s why KCPD declined to provide many details about why no one had been charged eight days later.

Gio Carr’s autopsy took place on Friday, June 21. Police detectives are still waiting for certain lab results, without which KCPD cannot complete the investigation, DiMartino said. DiMartino said the department has no idea when lab results will come back or when the investigation is expected to be completed.

The woman purported to be Gio’s godmother has not been booked into the Jackson County Detention Center as of June 28, according to court documents. There are currently no cases pending against her in Jackson County Court.

Kansas City police declined to comment on whether they consider Gio’s godmother a suspect in his death or whether other suspects have been identified. Police also declined to say how often detectives contacted Gio’s family, what specific lab results detectives were waiting for or whether anything else was known about what caused Gio’s injuries.

The department also declined to say whether officers had previously seen similar injuries to the infant. Harris, Armoni Carr’s aunt and Gio’s aunt, told The Star last week that Gio was discovered with “injuries like I’ve never seen or even heard of.”

If Gio’s death is ruled a homicide, he would be at least the fifth toddler allegedly killed by a caregiver in Kansas City in the past three years. In each of the four previous cases, the child or infant’s mother was charged with their deaths.

Most recently, in February, a 1-month-old baby with severe burns was found dead in a Manheim Park home, The Star reported. The infant’s mother, Mariah Thomas, admitted to putting the baby in the oven.

In November 2023, 5-year-old Grayson O’Connor fell to his death from their 17th-floor apartment after his mother, Corinne O’Connor, allegedly removed the window stops in their apartment. In 2022, Tasha Haefs allegedly beheaded her six-year-old son Karvel Stevens. Later that year, Adair Fish was charged with the death of her five-year-old daughter Ivy House after House’s severely malnourished body was discovered in Fish’s apartment in November 2022.

The Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office was unable to comment Thursday or Friday on whether the state had received any charging documents in connection with Gio Carr’s death.

Burying a child

According to social media, Armoni Carr, Gio’s mother, graduated from Wyandotte High School in 2022. She also attended Kansas City and Kansas Community College, according to social media, and worked at Worlds of Fun amusement park before working at Amazon.

Since Gio’s death, Carr and her family have faced backlash on social media for allegedly putting Gio in the care of a friend.

“Don’t ever go on (social media) like I’m neglecting my son,” Carr wrote on June 20, after news of Gio’s death broke. “I was his only (vulgar) parent, I did everything for him.”

Gio’s death isn’t the first time Armoni Carr has had to bury a loved one. Carr’s brother, 18-year-old Aaron Carr, was fatally shot in 2020. Aaron Carr, an honors student at Wyandotte County High School, loved riding his bike, playing basketball and spending time with his family, according to an obituary published by Aaron’s aunt, Tameya McNeal.

Gio’s funeral will take place on July 6. As of Friday, the fundraiser to cover Gio’s funeral costs had raised just over $3,800.

Thea Harris said Wednesday that the family has not yet raised enough money to give Gio a proper burial.

“Right now we’re really focused on trying to bury him,” Harris said.