GAINESVILLE - Indictments have been returned in the death of an 18-month-old Gainesville girl last month.
Gainesville police said they found Kaylee Kemp after getting a call about an "unresponsive child" June 12 at On Riverside Condominiums on Riverside Drive.
Spokesman Kevin Holbrook said the youngster was taken to Northeast Georgia Medical Center where she was pronounced dead. An autopsy the next day, Holbrook said, revealed that she had died of "blunt force trauma."
Deanna Kipp, 24, the girl's mother, and her boyfriend, Stephen Clark West, 22, were indicted by a Hall County grand jury.
Both were indicted on charges of malice murder, felony murder (2 counts), aggravated assault, and cruelty to a child in the first-degree. In addition, Kipp was indicted on a third felony murder charge and a second cruelty to a child charge.
Court documents show the couple is accused of assaulting the child with an unspecified ``blunt object'' sometime between June 11 and 12, causing swelling of the brain and death.
Attorneys for Kipp and West say they expect to enter pleas of not guilty.
(The Associated Press contributed to this story.)
Saturday
June 28th, 2025
10:58PM
