Mother charged with murder after allegedly beating infant to death

A mother is facing murder charges for the death of her infant child, court filings show.

Addison Perdew, 23, was arrested early Wednesday after Minneapolis police officers performed a welfare check on a mother and child in the Seward neighborhood and police found a dead 2-month-old child with signs of trauma.

It’s the 83rd homicide in Minneapolis this year, according to police.

Content warning: the story below may be difficult for some readers.

According to a criminal complaint filed Friday, the emergency call originally came reporting that a baby was "beat to death" inside of an apartment on the 900 block of 22nd Avenue South. Upon arriving at the scene, police found Perdew inside, on her knees, vomiting, crying and saying she’d taken a whole bottle of pills.

Officers asked where her child was and she pointed to the back of the unit, the complaint states. A small leg was poking out from under a blanket on a bed. There, police found a naked baby boy with dried blood around his nose and mouth, bruising spanning his arms, legs, torso and head. He was cold to the touch and police pronounced the infant dead at the scene.

Police found vomit spewed around the apartment, blankets and blinds that had been tossed about, a mostly finished bottle of Bacardi, a broken mirror and tissues scattered on the floor, the complaint says.

The Hennepin County Medical Examiner also came to the apartment. According to their autopsy, the child’s death was determined to be a homicide by multiple blunt force injuries — including brain hemorrhaging, both lungs damaged and hemorrhaged, a fractured clavicle, 33 rib fractures, various lacerations to his liver and multiple skull fractures, the complaint states.

Since she claimed that she’d taken a large number of pills, Perdew was transported to Hennepin County Medical Center. Perdew’s right hand was swollen and had "very dark red" bruising. She told law enforcement she didn’t remember the incident but that she "was the only one there and must have done it," according to the complaint.

During an investigation, police reviewed text messages and videos Perdew had sent. In one video, the child was quietly sitting in a car seat while Perdew said "you’re so [expletive] annoying… got to sleep… what the [expletive] are you doing what is your problem. Bro stop. [Expletive] stop that [expletive.] Take your [expletive] the [expletive] to sleep," according to court records. Another showed the infant with a bloody nose.

Text messages sent by Perdew included her saying "Im bout to kill him," "im angry asf n I pop him on the mouth," "im gonna slit his throat," and "im gonna choke him," the complaint states.

Just before law enforcement arrived at the scene Wednesday, she sent a text stating "I’m not going to prison n I can’t bring him back to life," records show.

Perdew is currently in custody. She has been formally charged with two counts of second-degree murder with intent. After a first appearance in court Friday, she has been ordered to undergo a chemical dependency evaluation.

Her bail was set at $1 million and she has a hearing in December.