In the late summer of 2020, the life of a baby girl from Evansville, Indiana, was tragically cut short. Eight-month-old Iowa Meriweather, a female infant, passed away on Friday, August 28, 2020. Born on December 21, 2019, Iowa had faced health challenges from the very beginning, having been born with a heart defect that required immediate medical intervention.
Despite her difficult start, she was described as a happy and sweet-spirited baby who was deeply loved by her family.
On the afternoon of her death, police were called to an apartment on Vista Drive in Evansville for a report of a baby being shot. Iowa was found inside the apartment with a gunshot wound to her head and was pronounced deceased after being taken to the hospital. The Vanderburgh County Coroner's Office later confirmed that the infant died from a single gunshot wound and ruled her death a homicide.
Initially, Iowa's father, Anthony Lamont Meriweather, told investigators that his daughter had been struck by a stray bullet in a drive-by shooting as he was carrying her into the apartment in her infant safety seat. However, his account of the events soon changed. During questioning, Meriweather admitted that the gun had discharged while he was handling it inside the residence. A witness at the apartment, where Meriweather had gone to play video games, told police they heard a gunshot after leaving the room and returned to see the gun on the floor near Meriweather and the infant in her car seat.
Following his admission, Anthony Meriweather was arrested and charged with neglect of a dependent resulting in death. He was booked into the Vanderburgh County Corrections Center. His bond was initially set at $50,000. This was later reduced, a decision that drew concern from the Vanderburgh County Prosecutor's Office, which sought to have the original bond amount reinstated, citing new information from the Evansville Police Department. Despite this, a judge upheld the reduced bond.
