Teen dad said it’s possible his baby hit her head. He’s charged with abuse, murder
When 19-year-old Zachariah Howard put his infant daughter to bed on Sept. 17, 2025, he said the three-week-old girl was “perfectly fine.” He told police he had fed her 2 ounces of milk and burped her, and that by 4 a.m. on Sept. 18, the little girl was in her crib and squirming in her swaddle.
But by 9:30 a.m., three-week-old Mulani Howard was dead. Her father told police that when he went to check on her early that morning, he found the baby unresponsive. He was adamant that the child had been “awake, alert and even smiling” the day before, court records described, and that no one else — besides the baby’s mother — was with them in the pair’s bedroom.
But the infant’s injuries, autopsy records and healthcare providers said, suggest she was shaken to death. Howard has since been charged with first-degree murder and child abuse.
Howard called for medical help, a recently released affidavit described, after checking on Mulani around 8 a.m. the morning of Sept. 18.
“He placed a finger under her nose to see if she was still breathing. She was not breathing and was pale,” the affidavit read. “Zachariah then said before that he was trying to feed her, and she was breathing and moving her arms and legs but was unresponsive; he thought she was just sleeping.”
After “pounding on the door” in order to enter the apartment, first responders found Mulani lying face up on the floor, pale and not breathing but still warm. Emergency dispatchers helped Howard perform CPR over the phone until firefighters and paramedics took over at the scene.
“Color started to return, but the procedure was not successful,” the affidavit read.
Mulani was taken to a Wichita hospital, where she later died. An autopsy revealed she suffered from blunt head trauma with internal bleeding and external contusions. Medical professionals who had seen the baby less than 10 days before she died did not note or observe any rashes or lesions on the infant or any abnormalities to her head.
Howard told police that it was possible he had woken up during the night, picked Mulani out of her crib and, in doing so, struck her head on the side of the bed.
A neighbor interviewed by police said that through the apartment’s thin walls, he heard a baby crying and yelling around 5 a.m.
“He heard a male voice yell, ‘Why you doing this?’ He thought he heard a female voice but could not make out what was said,” the affidavit read. “The baby instantly stopped crying.”
Howard’s aunt, who lives with the pair at the apartment, said she heard the baby crying around 6:30 that morning. She said this wasn’t unusual, as the three-week-old usually cried when she had her diaper changed. The aunt said she did not hear anything else until she woke up again to Howard yelling about Mulani not responding.
Howard is expected to make his next court appearance on Feb. 27.
