A Delco man said he ‘blacked out’ before killing his pregnant girlfriend, police say. Her child is clinging to life.
Kaiheem Williams told police he doesn't remember much from the night his girlfriend, Taniyah Bell, was killed. Her daughter remains on life support and isn't expected to survive, police say.
Taniyah Bell’s life was just beginning. The 19-year-old had recently graduated from Academy Park High School in Sharon Hill and was a few weeks away from giving birth to a daughter.
But on Thursday evening, Bell’s longtime boyfriend took all of that from her, killing her, Delaware County prosecutors say, in an act of violence he says he doesn’t remember.
Kaiheem Williams, 19, has been charged with murder for allegedly shooting Bell in the head inside the home they shared on Wycombe Avenue in Lansdowne, according to the affidavit of probable cause for his arrest.
He remained in custody Tuesday, denied bail, and there was no indication he had hired an attorney.
When police arrived at the apartment just after 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Williams rushed them inside, saying “my baby’s shot,” the affidavit said. There, they found Bell, who was about eight months pregnant, lying on a bed, shot once in the head.
Williams told investigators that he had come home from work, was “fried,” and had last seen Bell lying on the bed, watching television.
He later said he had “blacked out” and had major gaps in his memory. He came to after she had been shot, and called 911 using Bell’s cell phone, the affidavit said. Medics pronounced Bell dead at the scene, but took her to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center and, later, to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, where the baby was delivered in an emergency surgery.
Bell’s mother, Tylicia, wrote in an online fundraiser that her granddaughter “is now critically ill due to a lack of oxygen at birth.”
“This loss is indescribable, and Tylicia is now grappling with the overwhelming task of burying her daughter while also caring for her granddaughter, who is in the hospital fighting for her life,” the fundraiser said.
The baby shows “minimal neurological brain activity” and is being kept alive by life-support machines, according to the affidavit.
Detectives did not find a gun at the murder scene, but Williams had an unfired .45-caliber bullet in his pocket, the same caliber as the bullet that Bell had been shot with, the affidavit said.
He told police that he had a gun but did not know where it was, authorities said. Bell, he said, was the last person to have the weapon.
Tylicia Bell told police that she had been on a FaceTime call with her daughter for about 20 minutes, ending just before 7 p.m. The only other person she could see in the apartment at the time was Williams, according to the affidavit.
A doorbell video camera recorded Williams leaving his apartment about 15 minutes before he called 911 to report the shooting.
Williams is scheduled to appear at district court in Lansdowne on Nov. 26 for a preliminary hearing.