What to Know
- Police found the body of a 1-year-old girl in Philadelphia's Kemble Park Tuesday morning. The baby was later identified as Alina Diggs.
- The girlfriend of the baby's father, 33-year-old Nyishia Corbitt, was charged with her murder Thursday. Police say the child was suffocated.
- The girl's grandmother said a custody hearing was scheduled for next week. She was trying to take over care of the girl.
A 33-year-old woman was charged Thursday in the death of a toddler whose body was found partially buried in an Olney park earlier this week, police said.
Nyishia Corbitt is charged with murder, possessing an instrument of crime, falsifying reports, tampering with evidence, obstruction of justice and abuse of a corpse.
The baby, identified as 1-year-old Alina Diggs, was found buried in a shallow grave in Kemble Park. The park sits across from Central and Girl's high schools.
Diggs died from suffocation, according to Capt. John Ryan, head of the Philadelphia police homicide unit.
Surveillance video from Oct. 9 showed Corbitt exiting an apartment building near 16th Street and Olney Avenue with Diggs. Police think the baby was already dead at the time, Ryan said. She took the young girl to a park across the street and then returned sometime later without her.
Corbitt is the girlfriend of Diggs' father, police said. They have two other children together. Corbitt's mother is caring for those kids, Ryan said.
Diggs' father has not been charged.
Diggs' mother, Brooke Barnes, is currently jailed in a Montgomery County on retail theft charges, police said.
The girl's grandmother, Pamela Butler, said Thursday that she was working become the baby's legal guardian and had a court hearing scheduled for next week.
"My only grandbaby has been taken," Butler told NBC10's Drew Smith. "It's a hard pill to swallow."
Philadelphia police said Corbitt told her own mother that Barnes was missing. The older woman then told officers, who used cadaver dogs to find the child's body earlier Oct. 16.
Officers found the baby's head partially above ground when they searched the park, police said. She was also fully clothed, wearing a bright pink shirt.
"It's terrible to see a child meet this kind of end," Ryan said.
Police sources said evidence was recovered in an Olney apartment and in another location several blocks away from the crime scene.
Butler said she asked to see Diggs this weekend, but that the girl's father was evasive saying that the baby was in New York with his parents. Police believe the girl was already dead when that conversation took place.
"There’s no way you don’t see your daughter for an entire week and you don’t ask any questions," Butler said.
The family's pastor visited the Brooks, the baby's mother, in jail and told her about the murder, Butler said.
"I miss walking through the front door and she’s sliding down the steps at the speed of lightning and these are things that you can’t get back, but I do have the memories to hold onto," the grandmother said.
CORRECTION (Oct. 18, 2018, 8:47 p.m. ET): Philadelphia police initially said the toddler's name was Alicia Barnes. This story has been updated to correct her name to Alina Diggs.
