Cops: Killer Wanted Dad to See Girl, 2, Die

A Michigan man accused of shooting a 2-year-old girl dead at point-blank range as she sat on a porch with her father has been charged with torture as well as first degree murder. Police say the torture charge is because Raymone Bernard Jackson, 24, wanted to torment Kamiya French's father with his daughter's death, making it the last thing he ever saw, the Detroit Free Press reports. Jackson was in court yesterday and another suspect in the killing in the Detroit suburb of Inkster is being questioned. "The first coward's in custody," a police spokesman says. "Anybody that feels that they can execute a child in the state of Michigan, we're going to go after them with everything that we can."

The girl's father and a 12-year-old girl related to the family were shot and injured by the gunman, who was seen talking to the father briefly before opening fire, WXYZ reports. Inkster's chief of police says the murder may have been retaliation for a shooting at an after-hours club earlier this year that the father may have been involved in, but the police spokesman says "retaliation" isn't enough to explain the murder of the toddler. "Take somebody's life away for retaliation? I mean, just to mention that as part of a motive is silliness to me," he says. "I can't wrap my head around anything that would make me want to walk up to a small child sitting next to a porch, point a pistol at their head, and shoot them dead. I can’t give you a motive."