Man Kills Infant Daughter During Sexual Assault

I stopped watching TV cop shows several years ago because truth is stranger than fiction. Just when you think you have heard all the perverted things that people can do, along comes a story that is so disgusting and heinous that makes be shake my head and wonder what has happened to mankind.

Sutton's Bay, Leelanau County, Michigan

If I may reminisce for a moment.... About thirty years ago, I went with a college group up to Traverse City , Michigan. It was Christmas break, and we went for a week-long ski trip to a place called Sugar Loaf. We had a great time on the slopes and in the lodge, where the cozy fire and heated outdoor pool still bring a smile to my face. That was my one and only trip to anyplace in Michigan north of Detroit and Ann Arbor.

Sutton's Bay

The horrendous crime that I write about now occurred in Sutton's Bay, a small town about 25 miles north of Traverse City. It is located on Sutton's Bay, just off Grand Traverse Bay, which is an inlet off of Lake Michigan. The quaint town of Sutton's Bay has a school, a movie theater, a clothing store, and a main industry -- cherries.  According to the U.S. census, it covers 1.1 square miles and is inhabited by around 600 people. Whatever the exact number of population, it is one less than it was 13 months ago.


In August of 2011, 15-week-old Evelynne Deuman died. But she didn't just die. This newborn child was murdered. Murdered by a monster. Murdered by her father.A jury found him guilty this past week.

Beautiful and precious Evelynne Deuman.

This murder shattered the serenity of this tiny village where precious Baby Evelynne lived with her mother, Natasha Maitland, and her father, Steven Deuman. Reports are that nine or ten other people also lived in the trailer that the infant victim and her parents shared. The mother of this child was not involved in her death, and she was instrumental in convicting the baby's father. I hope that she was not married to him, as he will be going away for the rest of his life.

What is horrific about this case is the way that Steven Deuman killed his daughter. To put it bluntly, he stuck his penis in her mouth and suffocated her. From the sound of things, he wore a condom, which was recovered from the infant's mouth. The evidence that the jury heard was chilling. 

In August 2011, baby Evelynne Deuman was found in the bedroom of their mobile home bleeding from the nose, unconscious and not breathing.

 

Deuman wasted valuable time from the moment he found his baby daughter until he called an ambulance.

He later told her mother Natasha Maitland that she had choked on a used condom.

Throughout the trial, he maintained he put his daughter on the bed while he went outside for a cigarette. When he came back she was lying on the floor not breathing with the discarded condom in her mouth.

Subsequent tests showed the DNA on the outside belonged to the baby and on the inside belonged to Deuman.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Phil Green told jurors that Deuman killed the girl during the oral rape, and then he considered scenarios throughout the evening to suggest she died of an accidental cause.

He didn’t call 911, but told Maitland on the telephone that their daughter wasn’t breathing, wasting valuable time which could have saved her life.

He faces life in prison.

You can read more about the trial and what the father of the child alleged happened. His defense--that the child must have rolled off the bed onto the floor and she found a used condom that he and the child's mother had left on the floor--was preposterous and insulting. The jury didn't buy his cock-and-bull story. Not after additional witnesses testified that Deuman had also molested them when they were children. 

If the stories that you hear about men like convicted Deuman are true, he will not last long in prison. Even the most hardened criminals do not like child molesters. Jeffrey Dahmer and Fr. John Geoghan are proof of  that.

Rest in peace, Baby Evelynne.