ARCHDALE, N.C. - Imagine sitting in jail for 158 days. You know you're innocent, but almost everyone has already made up their mind about you – that you’re guilty - and the allegations are horrifying.
That was reality for Shamus King.
Last September, He was accused of murdering his 11-week-old daughter in Archdale. About six months later, the charges were dropped when a pathologist determined the baby died from a rare medical condition, not abuse.
For the first time, King opens up about the murder accusation.
“They say time heals, but time definitely doesn't heal. I just miss her more. Everything I do, everything just reminds me of her,” he said.
It's a story with more than one tragedy: the death of an 11-week-old baby girl in the Triad, and the beginning of the darkest chapter of Shamus King's life.
He describes the terrifying moments before he called 911.
“She was sleeping,” he said, “I heard her cry yelp, so I looked over and she started seizing. Her arms and her legs got really stiff and tense and I went to go pick her up and her eyes rolled back. She got pale, kind of sweaty.”
Then, King says he ran next door, got neighbors to help with CPR, and called EMS. First a hospital in High Point, then at Brenner Children's Hospital, he was told things were going alright, until they weren't.
Baby Harper died and her father was charged with first-degree murder.
“It was a mess of everything,” King said, “People just wanted to point their fingers and blame someone and since I was the only one with her, I was the one to be blamed. And then to get accused of killing her, it breaks my heart. I would rather kill myself.”
Even in jail, facing death threats, King didn't blame those who blamed him.
But then - the truth came out. After months behind bars, his lawyer came to tell him he was free. The criminal charges were dropped.
“When he told me, I really didn't know what to say and I didn't know what to do,” said King, “I was just in shock. I was like finally, it's going my way. People are realizing that I could never hurt my daughter and that I didn't do this I couldn’t hurt her.”
In March, pathologists discovered Harper died from a rare medical condition, that caused blood clots in her brain and her heart.
Even with the proof, people still didn't believe he was innocent.
“People still think I did it. They're going to think it until the day I die, and the day they die, that's their point of view. I can't change them,” he said, “All that really matters is that my daughter knows, that I could never hurt her.”
He's back now, in his home state of Massachusetts. He’s rebuilding slowly, but never forgetting his daughter.
“She was a happy child,” said King, “She was like a little me, she was starting to look like her mother a little bit. She was getting her first birthmark, her personality was starting to come out, she was laughing and giggling more.”
Harper was his only child. He carries her ashes in a locket he wears around his neck every day.
He plans to stay up in the New England area, working and going to school, and, taking care of the family that stuck by him the whole time.
Those criminal charges were dropped in March, and King’s lawyer says issues with Randolph County Department of Social Services were resolved just this week. Randolph DSS cannot confirm or deny the information due to child abuse laws.
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