A man who fled after his 2-year-old daughter was found dead at his home surrendered to fugitive officers Tuesday night.
Authorities had been searching for Charles Bellamy, 25, since March 15, when they were called to his Fort Worth home on a reported drowning and found his daughter, Jaz’mine Howard, dead.
The medical examiner has not yet ruled on how Jaz’mine died. Police have said she had immersion burns on her lower extremities.
Her mother, Joy Howard, told the Star-Telegram that Bellamy picked her — Howard — up from work that night and told her that he fell asleep while Jaz’mine was bathing and awoke to find her lifeless in the tub.
He went on to say that, after trying unsuccessfully to revive Jaz’mine, he drove her to Arlington Memorial Hospital but did not go inside because he had been drinking and was scared, Howard said.
As they neared Bellamy’s Fort Worth home, he told Howard that Jaz’mine’s body was in the trunk, Howard said.
As his family called 911, Bellamy fled in his mother’s car and said he was going to commit suicide, Howard said.
Investigators later obtained a warrant of injury to a child with serious bodily injury against Bellamy.
Members of the a U.S. Marshal’s task force had been following numerous leads throughout Texas and Oklahoma to locate Bellamy, according to a news release this morning.
About 9 p.m. Tuesday, Bellamy, acting on the advice of his attorney, surrendered to officer Tom McLaughlin at police headquarters in downtown Fort Worth, the release stated.
He was being held in the Mansfield jail on the injury to a child warrant, as well as traffic warrants and a probation revocation warrant stemming from a case in which he was accused of assaulting a family member.
He is being held without bond due to the probation revocation warrant.