Demetrius Beatty, 40, faces first-degree felony murder and child cruelty charges in the death of a 2-month-old girl at a Southeast D.C. apartment.

The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) announced Thursday, Sept. 17, that Beatty was arrested in connection with the Aug. 16 homicide at the Illume Apartments in the 800 block of New Jersey Avenue, Southeast, in the Navy Yard neighborhood. The department said in the post that it had made "the arrest of a suspect in connection with a August 2026 homicide in Southeast."

The Capitol Area Regional Fugitive Task Force took Beatty into custody Wednesday, Sept. 16, according to DC News Now. He was charged with first-degree felony murder and first-degree cruelty to children.

Beatty is not the infant's father, MPD told DC News Now. He was dating the child's mother at the time of the incident.

The Aug. 16 incident

First District officers responded to the Illume Apartments at approximately 9:47 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 16, for a report of an unconscious infant, according to an MPD press release. Officers found the unresponsive baby girl suffering from blunt force injuries.

WUSA9 reported that when police arrived, a witness was holding the infant in the building's lobby. D.C. Fire and EMS transported the baby to Children's National Hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

Two days later, on Tuesday, Aug. 18, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner ruled the cause of death was blunt force trauma and the manner of death was homicide.

Investigation

MPD detectives identified early on that the case had what the department described in August as domestic overtones, according to WTOP's Aug. 19 reporting. No suspect was named at that time.

About a month later, the fugitive task force arrested Beatty. He faces the charges in connection with the infant's death. The case is logged under MPD case number 26115580.

Detectives from MPD's Special Victims Unit (SVU) are continuing to investigate in coordination with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia. No arraignment date or detention status for Beatty has been announced.