Exclusive: Man in prison may now stand accused in three-year-old girl's death

MILWAUKEE -- A Racine man in prison for years may now stand accused of a three-year-old girl's death -- after she died in Milwaukee on Sunday, November 1st.

The girl was found dead at a home near Booth and Auer on Milwaukee's north side on Sunday morning. She is identified by Milwaukee police as Khalia Smith.

Court records show 28-year-old Dontae Neal, who is serving a seven-year sentence at Green Bay Correctional, was convicted of shaking Khalia Smith in 2012 -- when she was just three months old and living in Racine.

A charging document and a report from the Department of Children and Families says the baby had prior rib fractures and severe head trauma.

Neal was the mother's boyfriend at the time. He told police the baby was crying and Neal jumped up and down with the baby's head unsupported. He told police he was dancing. The medical examiner says it is looking at those prior injuries as a cause for Khalia's death years later.

"Death would often come from complications of respiration and many of the children have seizures," said Dr. Lynn Sheets with Children's Hospital of Wisconsin.

Dr. Sheets says 1,500 children are shaken in the U.S. each year. About one quarter of them die right away. Others survive.

"The kids who are severely brain damaged survive and sometimes die later," said Sheets.

FOX6 News happened to meet baby Khalia when she was born in November 2011. We ran a news story after her mother gave birth to her unexpectedly at home.

Now, nearly four years later, a man still in prison for shaking her, could be charged with her death.