Sacramento father admits leaving baby in bathtub before death
Emari Thompson, charged with murder in the drowning death of his 11-month-old daughter, admitted in a jailhouse interview that his actions led to the tragedy.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. —
Emari Thompson, who is being held at the Rio Cosumnes Correctional Center, admitted responsibility for the death of his 11-month-old daughter during an exclusive jailhouse interview, describing the incident as an accident.
“Saturday should have just been a normal Saturday for me and my daughter. Just, you know, to have daddy daughter time,” Thompson said.
Instead, the day ended with his daughter’s death and Thompson in an orange jumpsuit.
| PREVIOUS COVERAGE | Father arrested in connection with death of his 11-month-old child, Sacramento police say
“I’m in here so it wasn’t a good thing obviously,” he said. “I just wasn’t paying attention to her.”
Thompson recounted the events of that day, starting at 1 a.m. when his daughter needed a diaper change.
“Normally what I do is when I don’t have any wipes to change her is put her in the bathtub just to clean that all off,” he said.
Thompson said he then went to lie down for what he thought would be five minutes.
“For five minutes. Five minutes eventually turned into 4 or 5 hours,” he said.
The next thing he remembered was his girlfriend waking him up.
“She asked me, why is the water running? Where’s the baby? In that moment and in that time that I woke up, I knew it was… It was over. I had forgotten. I left my daughter in the tub,” Thompson said.
His girlfriend called 911, and Thompson was later charged with one count of murder.
“Police tell us that you’re being charged with one count of murder. What is your response to that?” KCRA reporter Anahita Jafary asked.
“To be labeled as a murderer, I feel like that’s not right. I didn’t have that intent on hurting my daughter. [She] was my only child. My only daughter. So, you know, the fact that they labeled me as a murderer, you know, it makes me feel twice as mad,” Thompson said.
Thompson also revealed that this was not the first time his daughter had nearly drowned while in his care.
“So you believe that your daughter died due to an accidental drowning?” he was asked.
“Yes, I do,” Thompson said.
“Do you remember the baby crying at all?”
“No, I don’t. Honestly, I was in that much of a deep sleep,” he said.
When asked if he was guilty, Thompson admitted, “This is not the first time. There were incidents before or maybe one incident before where I had literally gotten my baby’s clothes, was getting ready to get her dressed to get out of the tub, and [while] she was playing, I was hearing noises. I heard slipping or possibly drowning, you know? So when it comes to guilt. Yeah, I’m guilty of that.”
When pressed further about not learning from the previous incident, Thompson said, “Honestly, I want to say I did in a way, but I didn’t.”
Thompson also shared that his daughter would have turned one next month.
“It’s my first time being a dad. My daughter was 11 months old, but her birthday was next month on the 16th of September,” he said.
The Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office confirmed that Thompson has not yet entered a plea in the case.
See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel | Make KCRA a preferred news source in Google