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Teen girl dies after dad admitted to shaking her as a newborn baby. Now he faces homicide charges more than 13 years later.
Image source: KDKA-TV video screenshot

Teen girl dies after dad admitted to shaking her as a newborn baby. Now he faces homicide charges more than 13 years later.

Heartbreaking

A Pittsburgh-area father convicted of shaking his infant daughter in 2005 now faces homicide charges after his daughter — now 13 years old — died.

What are the details?

Ariden Jackson, 37, admitted to shaking his daughter during a 2005 feeding because she wouldn't stop crying. Jackson made the admission that same year, and was convicted on related charges.

Doctors later diagnosed his daughter — who was four weeks old at the time of the incident — with a seizure disorder as a result of the trauma. Specialists at the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh said that her 2005 injuries were "likely to cause long-term developmental disability."

Jackson, who was 23 years old at the time of the incident, told investigators that he shook his daughter at least four times during the feeding because his wife was napping and "he was frustrated, angry and unfortunately took it out" on the child. He pleaded guilty to to aggravated assault and reckless endangerment and was sentenced to five to 10 years. Jackson served 10 years in prison and was released in 2016.

Janiya, the 13-year-old girl, was in the care of a family friend and passed away in February as a result of the complications she suffered in connection with the seizure disorder.

Thirty-nine year-old Leshaun Byrd, who used to date Janiya's mother, took the child in five years ago.

"She's been with me for the past five years," Byrd told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "I just couldn't see her going into care. Being that I knew the child and had a relationship with the child, I just decided to take her in."

Byrd told the outlet that Janiya loved car rides, music, peanut butter, Béyonce, and bowling. Janiya was only able to speak a few words as a result of her disorder.

"She talked very little, but she would tell you if she was happy or sad by her smile," Byrd said. "She couldn't tell you she was having a bad day, she would just act out. Most of the time, she was a great child."

Byrd also revealed that Janiya loved hamburgers and hot dogs, and visited Disney World.

Byrd said that he was glad authorities were charging her father with homicide.

"He didn't afford that little girl an opportunity to grow up and be a child and enjoy her youth," Byrd said. "Most of her life she was in and out of hospitals. Some days she'd have short seizures, most of the time it was long seizures, and there were times she stopped breathing and we had to perform CPR."

According to the Post-Gazette, Jackson had not yet been arrested on the new charge as of Wednesday. Authorities are still searching for Jackson and ask anyone who sees him to call 911.

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