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Alleged Sean Phillips' Prison Letter Says Baby Kate Accidentally Died
LUDINGTON, Mich. (WOOD) - A letter apparently written by the father of presumed dead Baby Kate tells how the little girl died. Katherine Phillips -- known as Baby Kate to many -- was 4 months old when she went missing on July 29, 2011. Her father Sean Phillips was convicted of unlawful imprisonment in connection to her disappearance in April 2012. In June, he was sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison. The same day Phillips was sentenced, police announced they would begin to treat the case as a homicide investigation. On Sept. 11, Target 8 obtained a letter from a source that was apparently written by Phillips. It explains how he believes Baby Kate died, what he did with her body -- and gives a possible explanation to why he and Baby Kate's mother Ariel Courtland are getting married. Courtland filed for a marriage license on Sept. 10. In the letter, for the first time, is an admission from Phillips that Baby Kate is dead.
== Read: The full letter from Sean Phillips to Ariel Courtland (pdf) ==
On jail-issued lined paper and in an envelope postmarked July 16 is a letter believed to be scrawled by the man at the middle of the search for Baby Kate. The letter is unsigned, but does have Sean Phillips' name and prison ID number on the front of the envelope. The print is small and fills the paper from edge to edge. It has no greeting to apparent intended recipient Ariel Courtland. "If this is what you want, OK," starts the letter. Then it gives a five-page explanation of what happened the day Baby Kate went missing. The letter says it was a series of mistakes. First, Phillips drove off with the baby. But he says he had no idea Courtland had left Kate in her car seat in his car. "Heard the door shut, saw you walk off. Your hands in front of you, not at your sides. Like you were holding Kate. I drove away," the letter reads. Then a cell phone started to ring over and over again as he drove, the note says. But Phillips couldn't silence the phone because he couldn't reach it. He was frustrated, the letter says, because he thought Courtland was trying to control him by leaving the car seat in the car so he would have to bring it back to her. The letter says he had no idea Baby Kate was still in that seat and that he planned to ditch the car seat in frustration. "(I) was just going to throw it out onto that area between Burger King. I pulled but it was jammed between the seats. That just made it worse," the letter reads. "I grabbed it at the top and ripped it out as hard as I could. She was thrown from it. I didn't know. I'm so sorry. Held her for a long time. Seemed like forever. Maybe an hour, maybe a minute." "I've never cried that hard. Seemed like my throat was closing ... I was in shock." The letter goes on to detail what Phillips did once he realized what had happened. "I never even tried to help her. Never even thought to. Just sat there. Holding her. I don't think anything could have been done. Still I used to hate myself for not trying." Then he drove and drove, the letter says, not even knowing where he was headed. Then he stopped and got out of the car. "For the first time I could think some. Thought about Kate. Her smile. The way she looks around. Everything. I cried until I somehow couldn't anymore. She was set in a peaceful place. I was walking and lost. ... For the first time I realized I had left her. I wanted to die." But, he said, leaving the baby was never deliberate. "It wasn't dumping a body," the letter reads. "Wasn't like that at all. I want her buried too. I don't know where she was left. No, it's not some f------ swamp or lake." That seems to be an allusion to to evidence presented at his April trial regarding the plant life on Phillips' shoes. After Phillips got home, he learned the police were involved. That same day, he was in police custody. "Everything just happened, and I never had a chance to do the right thing," the letter reads. A mention of marriage comes toward the end of the letter. "Things spouses tell each other in confidence can't be made to testify. But we aren't married yet in the eye of the government," it reads. The letter ends abruptly: "Out of time for mail. Destroy this. We'll talk." Police say they know about the letter, but won't comment further.
http://www.woodtv.com/dpp/news/target_8/Dads-letter-Baby-Kate-is-dead
Views: 1523
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by XLFD on
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Be sure and read the letter. If this happened, it does seem to fit the timeline and explain Sean's behavior over the last year. Quite the tragedy if true.
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Permalink Reply by Dave on
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Just when you thought this story couldn't get any stranger, it got stranger... wow.
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Permalink Reply by Chuck Finley on
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Probably become a movie
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Anything is possible these days... sadly, its hard to say if the movie would end up being a comedy or a sad drama.
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Permalink Reply by Willy on
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Wonderful job of news gathering X. I'm calling LDN to see if they have laid off all of their reporters because it seems that everyone in the State knows about this except them. I have to give them credit tho because they do have a pretty picture of the giant fans on today's front page. Nice work LDN I'm looking forward to your next fluff story or your one sided, inaccurate reporting of local politics
Boy does this story sound fishy. Why would Sean write another note / letter in jail and take a chance of it being discovered just like the last one. Either he's the dumbest cluck on Earth or someone else wrote it or there's a scam in the works. How in God's name does someone throw a baby carrier and not realize there is a child in it? This whole story, starting with the missing child, is extremely bizarre.
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Alarming story if true. I keep hoping the baby is still alive.
Not sure what is so wonderful about the news gathering that you commend X for it. The story is WOOD's, not X's. Have you ever thought about offering to to buy the LDN and run it your way!
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I think Willy refers to the fact that within minutes after the story broke on WOOD we got it up here untouched, copied and pasted as it were, for those interested in the news as it happened. The City of Ludington Daily News (COLDNews), with all their resources and local contacts, had a much inferior article posted around 9:00 AM this morning on their website and Facebook.
Claps need to go out to Rob Alway of Mason County Press for getting it out before midnight with some extra fleshing out of the story: http://www.masoncountypress.com/2012/09/11/has-phillips-confessed-t...
The COLDNews made their biggest mistake of the year when they let that one go at the very first of the year, along with Jennifer Linn Hartley. Even bigger than all those reportage mistakes they make after every recent City Council meeting, LOL.
But let me pass Willy's kudos off to WOOD who are about two hours away by car and yet still routinely scoop all of us here in Mason County on this Baby Kate material, and do it well.
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WOOD beat LDN to the story. Resources maybe? Keep in mind that LDN isn't a 24/7 service. Why expect more than what they are?
Shocking story though. Makes me leery of all those who attacked Ariel all over the web while maintaining innocence for Sean. If the hand written letter is true, he is a baby killer. I am sure there will be those who will claim he only wrote it to protect her, or that she was involved too.
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COLDNews beaten ten hours by XLFD and X-LDN on this big of a story?!
If law enforcement believed this, here should be no reason to withhold the investigatory records of Ariel Courtland's (soon to be Phillips) and all periphery characters in this case, should there?
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I probably knew about it before XLFD. What I cannot figure out is why do you keep publicly harassing the LDN? Personal reasons maybe?
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CLFD
You consider questioning the only printed news oulet in Ludington about their lack of fairness, neutrality, integrity, biased reporting and collusive activity with local politicians as harassment? Why do you keep defending them? Personal reasons maybe?
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