ANOKA, MINNESOTA: A 38-year-old Minnesota man will reportedly spend only a few more than a decade in prison after he admitted to killing his three-month-old daughter more than a decade ago. Benjamin Alexander Russell throttled his tot with a pillow to “muffle her cries,” and later told the investigators that he just “couldn’t handle any of it.”
On Monday, July 31, Anoka County District Court Judge Jenny W Jasper sentenced Benjamin Alexander Russell to 11 and half years in a state correctional facility for the 2009 killing of young Suvanna Russell.
Who is Benjamin Alexander Russell?
Last year in July, Russell was apprehended for Suvanna's murder and first-degree manslaughter. In May, Russell reached a deal with prosecutors after he initially pleaded not guilty to both charges. However, he later agreed to plead to the murder charge in exchange for the aforementioned sentence and the manslaughter charge being dropped.
Under Minnesota state law, Russell was facing a maximum sentence of only 15 years for the murder charge as he was never previously been convicted of a crime. On January 19, 2009, officers with the Coon Rapids Police Department and Emergency Medical Services from Allina Health responded to a 911 call from the culprit at approximately 1.32 pm in which he reported an unconscious infant at his home located in the 13100 block of Meadowood Curve NW.
What happened to the child?
First responders found the baby unresponsive and not breathing upon arriving at the scene. Paramedics began performing life-saving procedures and the EMS transported the child to a nearby local facility where she was tragically declared dead. An autopsy performed on Suvanna later determined that she died of “positional asphyxia" which is also known as postural asphyxia. It occurs when a child’s body position prevents them from breathing properly.
What did Russell tell the investigators?
Russell told investigators at the time of his daughter's death that he had put his daughter down for a nap earlier in the day and used a blanket to hold up the child before leaving her alone for approximately one hour. During this time, the mother was reportedly at work. He claimed that upon returning he found Suvanna rolling onto her stomach and was positioned face down with her head buried in the blanket.
The defendant alleged that when he went to roll her onto her back, the girl did not respond. “He gave her mouth-to‐mouth CPR until paramedics arrived. She was non-responsive," the warrant states. But it later became evident that it was an act of murder upon further review and with his shocking revelation. On July 4 last year, the defendant told the baby's mother, identified as "NK" in court documents, that he murdered the infant with a pillow when she would not stop crying.
“The defendant explained that [Suvanna] would not stop crying while he was trying to lay her down for a nap and he ‘couldn’t handle any of it,’” the warrant said. “He took a pillow and placed it over [Suvanna’s] face to ‘muffle the sound,’” left the room to smoke a cigarette, and “returned twelve minutes later.”
Russell said that Suvanna had turned blue when he returned to check on his daughter. “The defendant told NK that she had given him the perfect alibi at the time of child A’s death because she had told him to remove the pillows and blankets from child A’s crib the night before,” court documents said. “Since he knew the blankets shouldn’t have been there, he told the investigators he had used them to prop up a bottle and child A rolled into the blanket.”
Russell had two young children
Before his arrest, court documents revealed that Russell had two young children under the age of two and his close ones viewed him as an overwhelmed parent who had said concerning things. “[T]he defendant has said he is angry he has them [the other children] when God knows what he did to child A,” the warrant said. “On July 8, 2022, the defendant sent a text message to the mother of his youngest children. He wrote, ‘I don’t give a shit about those kids if you’re not a part of it [SIC].”
What did the child's mother say?
Before Russell was sentenced, the devastated mother told Minneapolis NBC affiliate KARE, that she does not consider the punishment was sufficient for what he did to their daughter. “I feel like she was cheated,” she told the station. “To give him 138 months is extremely unfair. It’s unfair to her because she only got three months of her life.”
