Death penalty sought in killing of mom, child

Three-year-old Nylo Lattimore was still alive when his mother’s boyfriend dropped him into the Ohio River, days after stabbing the boy’s mother to death in their apartment, Hamilton County prosecutors said Wednesday.

After a nearly-three-month search for the missing toddler, Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters announced new murder charges against 21-year-old Desean Brown, the man already accused of killing 29-year-old Nyteisha Lattimore in early December 2020. Prosecutors will seek the death penalty in response, Deters said.

Nyteisha was stabbed to death in her home Dec. 5, according to police. Her body would not be discovered until Dec. 12, when officers found it abandoned on Pete Rose Way in downtown Cincinnati.

Deters said after Nyteisha’s death, Brown posted to and communicated with people through Nyteisha’s Facebook account, posing as the deceased woman.

Brown let Nyteisha’s body sit in her apartment for at least five days before moving it. Brown purchased a body bag on e-Bay, Deters said.

Deters showed a screenshot of Dec. 11 surveillance video that he said depicts Brown carrying Nyteisha’s body in the body bag through a hallway in her Walnut Hills apartment building.

Investigators found Nylo’s stroller in the Ohio River near where his mother’s body was found but did not immediately declare the child dead; family members expressed hope that Nylo would be found safe. Although the child’s body had not been recovered by Wednesday afternoon, Deters said police had identified a bloodstain found near Nyteisha’s body as belonging to Nylo.

Deters said investigators believe the boy was still alive when Brown put him into the water. “It’s very hard to believe,” Deters said. “I do get upset about it when it involves children. I do.”