Briefly 4/13/18

JENNINGS, Mo. -- A St. Louis man has been charged in the death of a 2-year-old boy after an autopsy showed the toddler had been kicked, squeezed and hit.

Twenty-four-year-old Corey Miller was charged Wednesday with second-degree murder and abuse or neglect of a child resulting in the death of Cayden Carson. St. Louis County police said in a news release officers from the city of Jennings found the boy unresponsive Sunday night while responding to a call. Cayden was pronounced dead at a hospital.

The death was initially classified as suspicious but later reclassified as a homicide. The autopsy determined Cayden died of blunt force trauma.

Miller is jailed on $250,000 bond. It wasn't immediately known whether he has an attorney.

BUCKLIN, Mo. -- A northeast Missouri man has been sentenced to 24 years in prison for crashing into and killing a woman with a stolen pickup truck.

KTVO-TV reported 19-year-old Jose "Joey" Montoya, of Bucklin, was sentenced Monday after pleading guilty to first-degree involuntary manslaughter, second-degree burglary and stealing.

Police said he stole the truck in June 2017 from a home in the small unincorporated Linn County town of New Boston. He then drove back to Bucklin about 15 miles away.

Police say he was driving recklessly when he struck 27-year-old Amanda Hepworth, of New Cambria, while she was in a residential yard. She was flown to a Columbia, Missouri, hospital, where she died two days later.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A baby giraffe named Dixie has made her debut at the Kansas City Zoo.

The Kansas City Star reports the 6-foot-tall calf and her mother, Lizzie, had not been on display until Wednesday. Dixie weighed more than 100 pounds when she was born in February. She was in good health, but zoo officials waited for warmer weather before allowing her in the outside enclosure.

Temperatures Wednesday in the Kansas City area hit 80 degrees.

-- Associated Press