MAHONING VALLEY Officials await autopsy on baby

Trumbull County's coroner will remain in charge of the investigation.
By JoANNE VIVIANO
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Remains of an 11-month-old who died last week have been sent to the Cuyahoga County coroner's office for an autopsy, police said.
Leroy Huff Jr. died in Forum Health Tod Children's Hospital on Thursday, 10 days before his first birthday. Police reports showed his skull was crushed.
The reports state his grandmother, baby-sitting him at his North Garland Avenue home, found him not breathing and unresponsive Oct. 9, about a half-hour after she had put him down for a nap.
The baby was taken to St. Elizabeth Heath Center and then to Tod, where he survived on life support for two days. A hospital worker told police his skull had been crushed, according to police reports.
Because the baby died in Trumbull County, his body had been referred to the Trumbull County coroner's office. A pathologist there was at an out-of-town seminar so Cuyahoga County was called in to perform the evaluation, said a spokeswoman at the Trumbull County office. She said the Trumbull County office will still handle the investigation.
Capt. Robert Kane of the Youngstown Police detective unit said the death remains under investigation. No details about the autopsy or cause of death were available today.
Explanation: The grandmother, Jayellen Thomas, 41, of Parkview Avenue, has said that she put the baby on a mattress and box springs in a bedroom before falling asleep in another room, where she watched a cartoon with the baby's 2-year-old brother. She said she heard a thump but believed it was a dog that was in the basement.
She said she went in to check on the baby about a half-hour after she had put him to bed and found him on the floor. She said he could walk and may have toddled out of the bed and fallen on a nearby brass door stopper.
Thomas said in an interview with The Vindicator that the baby was not abused.
Parents: Janell Thomas, 17, the child's mother, told police she was walking home when the grandmother came running toward her telling her the baby had been found face down on the floor, police reports show. The infant's father, Leroy Huff, 18, told police he was at his home on Martin Luther King Boulevard when the grandmother came to his home and told him the child was hurt.
The baby's brother, who turns 3 next month, was placed in the custody of Children Services when the baby was injured.