Father Facing Homicide Charges In Daughter's Death Surrenders To Police
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PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- The man convicted of shaking his infant daughter, causing her severe brain damage that resulted in her death as a teenager, has been arrested.
Jamiya Jackson, a Beaver Falls teen, passed away from her seizure condition in early February and now her father is charged with her death.
Ariden Jackson is charged with criminal homicide. He turned himself in to Allegheny County Detectives on Thursday afternoon. He's back in jail 14 years after he was charged for shaking Jamiya violently and causing her permanent brain damage.
A family friend Leshaun Byrd took Jamiya in as one of his own, along with his two other girls, and described her as a fun, happy and fearless young girl.
His girlfriend, Annie Howard, also cared for Jamiya and was with her on the day she passed away.
"He needs to serve life in prison," Howard said. "He needs to spend the rest of his life there because she could have had a good life out here. She could have been a normal kid, but he chose to shake her because he couldn't handle it."
Jamiya would have turned 14 at the end of April.
"I'm still sorry that he done that to her," Byrd said. "She shouldn't have suffered the way she suffered."
Byrd said Jamiya's death is particularly hard on his daughter Nadajaha Freeman.
"We used to just play outside," Freeman said. "I used to jump around with her sometimes and it was so fun."
The medical examiner's autopsy report described Jamiya's manner of death as "homicide."
Her family will forever remember her as a shining light.
"She kept me smiling and she always had a good time. She always enjoyed life," Byrd said.
