Missing Alabama Girl Kamille "Cupcake" McKinney Died From Suffocation, Officials Say

Kamille McKinney, the abducted Alabama 3-year-old who turned up dead in a landfill last week, was supposedly suffocated, according to court documents presented at her suspected killers’ trial proceedings last week.

The toddler died from asphyxiation by suffocation, according to warrants that were read in court on Friday, local ABC affiliate WHSV-TV reported. Her accused killers, Patrick Stallworth and Derick Brown, are facing capital murder charges in the case. They could face the death penalty if convicted.

Stallworth, who appeared alongside his girlfriend Brown in chains in court on Friday, appeared perplexed.

“I don’t understand how I’m being charged with the murder of this child,” Stallworth said, according to local station WVTM-TV.

Stallworth, who was arrested shortly after McKinney’s disappearance from a birthday party on Oct. 12, has previous child porn charges against him, according to online court records. His girlfriend, Brown, also faces past child abduction charges related to her own children. In 2018, she allegedly led law enforcement on a police chase with her children in the back of her car that ended with her crashing into a sheriff’s SUV, AL.com reported.

The Alabama couple was arrested a day after McKinney was reported missing. Police seized their Toyota SUV, which was allegedly spotted near the birthday party where McKinney vanished.

Police haven’t yet found a connection between McKinney’s family and Stallworth and Brown, according to local station WBMA-LD.

But Birmingham police chief Patrick Smith believes it was a planned kidnapping. 

“It only takes a split second,” Smith said during a press conference. “We can no longer assume that everyone is a part of the village that’s trying to raise the child. We cannot take those things for granted."

A funeral service was held for McKinney on Sunday, October 27, according to her obituary.

“In my heart, I just can’t see anyone doing that to a 3-year-old,” Sheila Tyson, a Jefferson County commissioner, told Oxygen.com. Tyson, who said she was too upset to attend McKinney's funeral, noted thousands attended the service.

Tyson had previously helped coordinate civilian search efforts in the area of southwest Birmingham where McKinney had initially vanished from. 

“You got to have some kind of warped soul,” Tyson added. “You got to be an evil, evil person with a sick mind — evil is in your brain in order to do something like that. I couldn’t imagine in the worst dream of my life doing anyone like that, a child especially. It’s awful.”

Tyson said Stallworth is from the neighborhood she grew up in in Birmingham. 

“He needs to be punished to the fullest of the law,” she said. "And an electric chair is not good enough and her, too. That child suffered. It breaks my heart.”

Stallworth and Brown are being held without bond, according AL.com.