The Hawk Eye, Burlington, Iowa –
MOUNT PLEASANT – Police are investigating the death of a 2-month-old infant found dead Friday morning in a car seat inside a Mount Pleasant mobile home.
Ron Archer, Mount Pleasant police chief, said officers were dispatched about 10:30 a.m. to a mobile home park at Irish Ridge Road, where they found the unresponsive child lying in a car seat. Emergency crews tried to revive the baby but were unsuccessful, he said.
Archer said the child did not show any signs of “obvious trauma,” and foul play is not suspected. He said police officers from Mount Pleasant and the Henry County Ambulance Service responded.
“When it became clear the infant wasn’t responding, officers called Henry County Medical Examiner Dr. Kent Metcalf to the scene,” Archer said Friday afternoon. “An autopsy will be conducted by the state medical examiner’s office. The cause of death is pending the results of the autopsy.”
Archer was not sure who called police but did say the infant’s mother and a 2-year-old child were at home when the unresponsive infant was discovered. The mother took the 2-year-old to her parent’s residence in the same mobile home park, Archer said.
He said neither the name of the infant nor the adults who lived at the home where the child was found have been released, pending the notification of next of kin.
It is the second time in two days an infant has been found dead inside an area residence.
Burlington police were called to a home in the 1200 block of North Sixth Street about 10:45 a.m. Thursday after a resident there reported an infant was not breathing. That child was taken to Great River Medical Center in West Burlington where the infant was pronounced dead.
The name of that child has not been released.
A police spokesman said there is no indication of foul play in that infant’s death, either. An autopsy was performed Friday in Iowa City, but the results have not been released.
