DURHAM, N.C. (AP) — A North Carolina man accused of trying to drown his children could face new charges after one daughter died in a hospital.
The 3-year-old daughter of Alan Tysheen Eugene Lassiter died Wednesday, three days after her father tried to drown her and her sister in an apartment complex pond, police said. Authorities have not released the girl’s name.
The child was entirely underwater when an off-duty sheriff’s deputy pulled her from the pond Sunday night, authorities have said. She had been in critical condition at a hospital since then, said Durham Police spokeswoman Kammie Michael.
Lassiter is currently charged with three counts of attempted murder for trying to kill the girl, her sister and their 7-year-old brother. Lassiter’s 5-year-old daughter, who was floating in the pond crying when rescued, has been released from the hospital, police said. The 7-year-old boy got away from Lassiter and ran for help, they said.
Lassiter is jailed on a bond of $2 million and is awaiting a court hearing next month. No new charges had been filed against him as of late Wednesday.
On Sunday night, Lassiter flagged down passers-by at the Audubon Lake apartments and told them he thought his son had been kidnapped and needed help finding him, apartment complex manager Sylvia Scott said Tuesday.
It wasn’t until later that Lassiter told Scott and a 911 operator that he’d thrown his 3- and 5-year-old daughters in the pond, Scott said. The girls were pulled from about 5 feet of water by Durham County Sheriff’s Deputy David Earp, who lives nearby.
Lassiter, 29, lived in Raleigh and apparently wound up at the apartment complex randomly, according to Durham Police Chief Jose Lopez.
Court records show Lassiter and his wife had a rocky start to their marriage six years ago.
Ashley Ivey sought a domestic violence protection order and signed a statement May 15, 2009, that said Lassiter “threatened to throw hot oil in my face and cut my hair off.”
“He also threatened to take my son from me for a long time. All this started because I didn’t want to marry him.”
Ivey added that “things of this nature” had also happened previously.
Ivey voluntarily dismissed her complaint four days later. Less than two weeks after that, Ivey and Lassiter were married.
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(Photo Source: AP)
