Man Charged With Murder In Infant Son's Death Arrested In Montana After Multi-State Search: Report

HELENA, MONTANA — A man charged with murder in the 2022 death of his infant son at a Monee truck stop was taken into custody in Montana Tuesday, according to KTVH local news.

A warrant was issued in Will County last week for Kelsey Simmons, 35, of Tennessee. Simmons is charged in the August 2022 death of Sevyn Simmons, his 2-month-old son. Late last week, Monee police said Simmons was not yet in custody and that they were working with other agencies to apprehend him.

Police in Helena, Montana, serving as task force officers with the U.S. Marshals received information that Simmons, who was wanted on three counts of homicide in Illinois, was traveling through the Helena area, KHTV said.

Helena police conducted a high-risk felony stop Tuesday and took Simmons into custody. He is awaiting extradition to Illinois, Monee police said.

On Aug. 31, 2022, Sevyn Simmons was in the care of his parents, Simmons and Dominique Scott, then of Green Bay, Wisconsin, and Milwaukee, respectively. The parents told police that they had been staying overnight at the truck stop inside their company truck tractor semi-trailer before returning to Wisconsin.

Simmons and the boy's mother told police that they did not know why he had stopped breathing, Monee police said previously. Sevyn died four days later of closed head injuries and blunt force head trauma, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office, which classified the death as a homicide.

In a petition to deny pre-trial release filed by the Will County State's Attorney's Office, prosecutors say the mother told hospital workers that Simmons claimed he was patting the baby’s back and fell asleep, causing the baby to roll off his legs and onto the floor of the truck.

Prosecutors said a paramedic reported hearing Scott on the phone with someone she believed was Simmons saying, "Don’t you know you can’t shake a baby like that?," as well as "Why would you think to do that?" and "Haven't you heard of shaken baby syndrome?" A social worker at the hospital also reportedly heard Scott blame Simmons for the incident several times, the petition alleges.

The mother told hospital workers that baby Sevyn was bleeding from the nose and that both she and Simmons tried to perform compressions on the bath, as well as mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

According to prosecutors, Simmons did not respond when a detective asked him if he shook Sevyn, possibly out of frustration or being overworked, or if he was "over aggressive" in handling the baby. Officials said at no point did he try to blame the mother for the infant's injuries.

The Cook County Medical Examiner's Office on Sept. 5, 2022, performed an autopsy, detailing Sevyn's injuries, including a brain bleed; hemorrhages in the cervical spinal cord, forehead and both eyes; rib fractures with evidence of healing; and an intramuscular tongue hemorrhage.

Monee police declined comment on Tuesday.

Prosecutors are requesting that Simmons be detained pending trial, saying he has other children he would be in contact with in Tennessee.

Patch Editor John Ferak contributed to this report.