SUMTER, S.C. — A Sumter father is in custody after his baby boy died.
The 23-year-old Sumter man and father of the infant, Dashun Malik Canty, is facing charges.
According to the Sumter Police Department the mother of the 11-week-old boy told police she left the baby with his father while she went to an appointment Sunday.
When she returned to her room at a Broad Street hotel, the baby was alive but unresponsive.
She and a family member then drove the baby to Prisma Health Tuomey where the baby later was transferred to a Columbia hospital where the family learned he had died.
Medical officials and the Sumter Coroner’s Office said the baby suffered a head injury that they consider suspicious.
An autopsy to is scheduled for Tuesday.
Canty is charged with contempt of family court in an unrelated matter and homicide by child abuse.
He was taken into custody Monday and booked at the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office Detention Center
An investigation is continuing.
