A woman is facing a murder charge after police said she strangled her 8-year-old son then spent several hours running errands with his body in the car in Miami-Dade.
Shaneka Ann McKinzie, 36, is facing a first-degree murder charge in the killing of her 8-year-old son, Jaisyn Burgos, Miami-Dade Police officials said Thursday.
According to police, McKinzie brought Burgos to Hialeah Hospital Tuesday evening. The child, who was unconscious, was pronounced dead at the hospital.
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A medical examiner's autopsy determined he'd been strangled to death, police said.
McKinzie later confessed to investigators that she had been plotting to kill her son for the previous two days, police said.
At some point, as he was asleep in the rear passenger seat of her car, she used a tablecloth to suffocate and strangle him until he became unresponsive, police said.
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McKinzie then drove around various parts of the county running errands with her son's body in the car, police said.
"It's very difficult to wrap your head around how a parent could not only plan to murder their child but then after carrying out this murder go on about their day as if nothing happened," Miami-Dade Police Det. Andre Martin said. "To drive around with their child's lifeless body and complete various errands as if nothing ever happened. It's unimaginable."
McKinzie was arrested and booked into jail. During her appearance in court Thursday, McKinzie was ordered held without bond and appointed a public defender.
Police said McKinzie is homeless and had moved to South Florida last year with her son from Missouri. The child wasn't in school and they were living at different hotels.
Officials and family members said Burgos' father died a few years ago.
