Mom Grieves Over 1-Year-Old Stabbing Victim

A mother is desperate for answers after her 1-year-old daughter was stabbed to death.

“Why would you kill a baby? Why would you kill her?” asked Shakyia Clay. That’s the question ever since her baby Zaniyah was stabbed to death in Bristol on Monday night.

“She was 1," Clay said. "What possesses you to do something like that?”

Clay told NBC Connecticut she had just dropped off Zaniyah at a home on Park Street with a member of her extended family and then had left for a meeting. The girl was stabbed in that home an hour later.

"It was shocking. I just couldn't believe it," Clay said.

Clay told NBC Connecticut her 3-year-old son was also in that home that night. He was not hurt, and it’s unclear if he saw the attack on his baby sister.

One year old baby girl dies after her own uncle stabbed her to death.

Police have accused Arthur Hapgood of killing Zaniyah. Clay said Hapgood is her brother’s uncle, and she’s known him for years. She says she saw him at the home when she left Zaniyah there.

“I was sitting right there on the couch with him and my brother. We were all just having a good time,” Clay said.

According to Hapgood’s arrest warrant, he was smoking marijuana outside his family’s place that night. Investigators say he then walked inside in a fit of rage, grabbed a kitchen knife and stabbed the 1-year-old in the stomach.

“I’m beyond angry — beyond,” Clay said.

Bristol Police have charged Arthur Hapgood, 36, of Waterbury with murder after they say he stabbed and killed his niece while he was babysitting her Monday night.

Days later, Clay still doesn’t know why her baby girl was killed. Investigators are still trying to answer that question themselves.

“I want to know what happened. I still don't know what happened,” Clay added.

For now, Clay says all she can do is grieve and pray for justice. “He should not get away with this at all," Clay said. "He took a life, a baby that didn't even see her life yet."

Arthur Hapgood is behind bars on a $2.5 million bond. He is scheduled to face a judge on Sept. 9.  

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