Whitehaven Man Indicted in Baby’s Death

March 17, 2021 – A Whitehaven man was indicted Tuesday in the 2020 death of his girlfriend’s 23-month-old daughter who was left in his care, said Shelby County Dist. Atty. Gen. Amy Weirich.

Victor P. Williams, 28, was indicted on four felony counts, including first-degree murder in the perpetration of aggravated child abuse and aggravated child neglect. He is being held without bond in the Shelby County Jail.

Investigators were called to Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital on May 28, 2020, where Lanniah Anderson was brought by ambulance in critical condition and died a short time later.

They said the child’s mother left for work at 5 o’clock that morning and that the baby and her two young brothers were left in Williams’ care at their apartment on East Holmes Road near Millbranch Road.

Williams told investigators that later that morning he was preparing breakfast for the two boys when he noticed Lanniah was unresponsive in her crib. He called 911 and said he did not know what happened to the baby.

An autopsy showed the cause of death to be multiple blunt force trauma.

The case is being handled by Chief Prosecutor Eric Christensen and Asst. Dist. Atty. Gavin Smith of the District Attorney’s Special Victims Unit which handles cases involving rape, aggravated rape, child sexual abuse, severe physical abuse of child victims, elder abuse and vulnerable-adult abuse. SVU was created in 2010 as an expansion of the multi-agency Child Protection Investigative Team (CPIT).