Police say a father beat his two-year-old girl to death.
On Monday afternoon, Austin police got a 911 call from a South Austin apartment complex off Slaughter Lane and South 1st Street. The caller, Rebekah Gaddis, told dispatchers that her boyfriend's two-year-old daughter, Alaney Queen, possibly had a seizure and stopped breathing.
When officers arrived they found the child's father, 22-year-old Nicholas Williams, holding the toddler.
Despite an officer's attempt to perform CPR, doctor's pronounced the child dead at Dell Children's Hospital.
Williams told police that he disciplined the child shortly before her death for going to the bathroom in her pull ups.
"He spanked her, but he said he spanked her approximately 10 times with a belt," Sgt. Hector Reveles said. "The subsequent autopsy revealed that the child had a significant more injuries that he accounted for by that, by spanking."
Police arrested Williams Friday for the first degree felony of injury to a child.
According to the arrest affidavit, the medical examiner believes the toddler died from blunt force trauma and possibly suffocation.
Detectives interviewed Williams' girlfriend who said she witnessed Williams on at least five separate occasions hit the girl on the back and arms with a belt.
She told police she does not allow her boyfriend to spank their own children like he spanked the toddler, because she believes it is "excessive."
The couple has a two-month-old baby girl. CPS took custody of her.
The mother of the victim lives out of state.
Neither Williams nor his girlfriend have a prior history with CPS.
Williams has not been in Texas long. Austin police arrested him for drug possession in December of last year.
Detectives say grand jurors could decide to file more severe charges -- possibly capital murder.
