The baby’s mother first described a routine morning before investigators learned of previous incidents and obtained an alleged admission.
MILWAUKEE — The investigation into the death of a 7-month-old Milwaukee girl began with her mother’s 911 call reporting an unresponsive baby, then shifted as police heard about an earlier witnessed incident and prosecutors say the mother acknowledged deliberately interfering with the child’s breathing.
By the end of that investigation’s first stage, Makenzie D. Critton, 22, had been arrested and later charged with physical abuse of a child through repeated acts causing death. The criminal complaint alleges the conduct occurred over a period stretching from June into July, making the sequence of what officers learned after arriving at the home central to understanding the case. Prosecutors are not alleging only a single unexplained death. They say interviews conducted around the emergency revealed a history of alleged abuse involving the same infant.
The first information officers received from Critton was not an admission of abuse. According to the complaint, she told authorities the baby had awakened early on July 27, received a bottle and a diaper change and was later placed in a car seat to sleep. Critton said she also went back to sleep and later got up, checked on the infant and found her not breathing. That account presented the crisis as something Critton said she discovered after waking rather than something she had caused.
Emergency responders were already working against the clock. Police reached the North 25th Street residence shortly after the call and found the child without a pulse and not breathing, according to the complaint. CPR continued for about 20 minutes before first responders detected a faint pulse. The baby was then taken to Children’s Wisconsin, where medical staff continued attempts to save her. She was ultimately pronounced dead. The child has not been publicly named in the reports reviewed for this article.
While the medical response continued, an officer spoke with the child’s grandmother. That conversation introduced information that investigators did not have from the initial 911 call. The grandmother said she had previously seen Critton obstruct the baby’s breathing during an incident in June, according to prosecutors. She told police she immediately removed the infant from Critton and kept the child with her for the rest of that day. She also said the incident had not been reported to law enforcement when it happened.
The grandmother’s account gave officers a reason to ask whether the July emergency had another explanation. According to the complaint, she said Critton had reacted to the baby’s crying during the earlier episode. After the infant was found unresponsive weeks later, the grandmother told police she feared that Critton might have done something similar again. Her statement did not by itself establish what happened on July 27, but it provided investigators with an allegation of prior conduct involving the same child and a similar circumstance.
Police then questioned Critton further. Prosecutors say she told an officer, “I got frustrated,” referring to the infant’s crying. The complaint alleges Critton subsequently admitted holding the baby’s face tightly against her body until the infant stopped moving or breathing. News organizations reporting from the charging document have published different durations for that alleged act. Because of that discrepancy, the exact length of time is not presented here as an established fact. What the reports consistently attribute to prosecutors is an alleged intentional act followed by the child’s loss of responsiveness.
Investigators say the admission did not stop with the final morning. Critton allegedly told detectives she had obstructed the child’s breathing before and had seen the infant recover. Prosecutors say she indicated she expected the baby to begin breathing again because that had happened previously. That statement became important to the state’s theory because it connected the fatal emergency to earlier conduct rather than leaving investigators with only the events immediately before the 911 call.
Additional interviews produced other allegations. Local reporting on the complaint says the child’s father described intervening during a separate episode in which he believed the baby’s ability to breathe was being obstructed. Witnesses also reported seeing the infant shaken or struck during earlier incidents. Those descriptions are not independent findings of guilt. They are witness accounts gathered by investigators and included in the prosecution’s presentation of an alleged recurring pattern.
That pattern is reflected in the charge prosecutors selected. Wisconsin law defines repeated physical abuse of the same child as three or more qualifying violations during a specified period. When at least one violation causes the child’s death, the offense is a Class A felony. The statute is therefore focused on multiple alleged acts rather than requiring the prosecution to present the case solely around one event. If convicted of the Class A felony charged here, Critton would face life imprisonment. She is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.
The medical side of the case was not complete when the first wave of local reporting was published. CBS 58 said a final determination of the infant’s cause and manner of death was pending. Prosecutors nevertheless filed the repeated-acts charge, alleging that the pattern of abuse caused the child’s death. A criminal complaint can establish probable cause for a prosecution, but it does not replace the state’s burden at later proceedings to prove the charge beyond a reasonable doubt.
The complaint also records the moment investigators told Critton the baby had died. According to prosecutors, she cried and said, “I am going to jail for a long time.” That statement is part of the evidence attributed to law enforcement, but it is not a guilty plea or a court finding. The legal case turns on the full body of admissible evidence, including the alleged admissions, witness accounts, medical evidence and whatever challenges the defense raises as the prosecution moves forward.
Critton made an initial court appearance July 31, local outlets reported. The reports reviewed for this article do not establish that the case has since ended in a plea, trial or conviction, and they do not provide a later final medical ruling on the baby’s death. As a result, the last confirmed public posture remains that Critton faces the repeated-acts child-abuse charge stemming from an investigation that began with her own emergency call and expanded as police interviewed the people around the infant.
Author note: Last updated September 9, 2026.