KALAMAZOO (WKZO AM/FM) — A Kalamazoo couple who have been charged with abusing a 4-year-old girl to death are on trial this week. Jury selection is underway downtown.
Kelly Ballinger and her live-in boyfriend, Matthew Longnecker, are charged with open murder, first degree child abuse, and using methamphetamine.
Investigators claim the would wrap Desaray Thompson in blankets and duct tape to keep her from getting out of bed.
Pathologists say Thompson had smothered to death last July, at a home on Mt. Olivet Road.
She had been wrapped so tightly she was unable to breathe, investigators saying the couple, after allegedly smoking meth, ignored her cries for help and gasps for breath.
There were allegedly other signs of abuse, mainly bruising noted in the autopsy report.
They will be tried at the same time, but before separate juries.
