Las Vegas man charged in child’s suffocation death
An 18-year-old man who said the devil spoke to him was arrested Thursday on charges he suffocated a child.
Carl Marcus Guilford was booked on a murder charge at the Clark County Detention Center and was being held without bail.
Guilford told police that he held a comforter over the mouth of his cousin’s 6-year-old son on Wednesday night to quiet the boy so he wouldn’t wake the boy’s mother at their apartment at 1430 E. Desert Inn Road, according to a report.
The boy, who had severe asthma, appeared to quit breathing. Guilford described rolling the child onto his stomach and hearing the devil’s voice tell him "well done" as he left the room, police said.
Guilford went to the Strip and was arrested at a hotel on a separate warrant not specified in the report. He was taken to the Henderson jail and later transferred to the county jail .
The boy’s mother, Tina Thomas, called 911 at 7:47 a.m. Thursday when she found her son wasn’t breathing.
He was transported to Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center, where doctors determined he had been dead for hours.
Thomas told police that Guilford, her cousin, had once shoved an object down the child’s throat, choking him. She said she didn’t know whether Guilford had anything to do with the boy’s death.
Guilford’s mother described her son as a troubled young man who was bipolar and had acted strange after he supposedly smoked marijuana laced with a toxic substance several months ago, the report states. Guilford talked with family members about angels, demons and the Illuminati, and had mentioned "making sacrifices," the report states.
