Charge: Burien dad beat baby girl to death with Xbox controller Prosecutors say father found resting with dead 8-month-old on his chest

A Burien man accused of beating his infant daughter to death and trying to blame the killing on her sister, just a toddler herself, has been charged with murder.

King County prosecutors claim 27-year-old Ahmed Ibrahim smashed his 8-month-old daughter’s skull with an Xbox controller on Monday morning at the family’s Burien-area apartment. According to charging papers, the girl’s mother returned home to find Ibrahim reclining with their dead child on his chest.

Writing the court, Senior Deputy Prosecutor Cecelia Gregson described the killing as “brutal and sadistic.” Ibrahim, she said, “viciously beat” the girl to death while his two older daughters were nearby in the home.

“It goes without saying that the state’s concern for the well-being of these children and their mother is substantial,” Gregson told the court, arguing successfully that Ibrahim be held on $1 million bail.

On Monday, King County Sheriff’s deputies were called to the Wellington Place apartments following a report of an injured infant. They arrived to find the girl dead from obvious trauma to her head and stomach.

Ibrahim was left alone to watch the three girls – the older girls are 4 and 2 – after his wife left for work at 12:30 a.m. The woman later told police their youngest had been “fussy” that night, but was otherwise fine when she left her with Ibrahim.

She returned home at 10:30 a.m. and found her husband lying on a large footrest, the 8-month-old resting on his chest, a King County Sheriff’s Office detective said in charging papers. Minutes passed as she changed clothes before she returned and picked up her infant daughter.

The woman found the girl’s face distorted by trauma and her body cold to the touch, the detective continued. Alarmed, she rushed to a relative’s nearby apartment for help.

The girl’s relatives tried in vain to revive her with CPR. Firefighters responding to the scene attempted it as well, without success.

Investigators obtained a search warrant immediately and began examining the apartment. Ibrahim was arrested; according to charging papers, a deputy described him as being “on something,” slurring his words and nodding off despite having just lost a child.

The detective said Ibrahim initially claimed his 2-year-old daughter killed her younger sister. A medical examiner concluded the girl’s injuries – a fractured skull among them – couldn’t have been caused by a 2-year-old.

Ibrahim went on to blame his deceased child for instigating a fight with her older sister, the detective said in charging papers. According to the detective, Ibrahim described his youngest as an “aggressive child.”

During the interview with police, Ibrahim denied drinking alcohol – bottles of malt liquor were found in the home – or hitting his children, the detective said. Investigators found evidence that the girl had been abused prior to her death.

According to charging papers, investigators came to believe Ibrahim beat the little girl with an Xbox controller during the attack. She is believed to have died shortly after the beating, sometime before her mother returned from work.

Ibrahim has been charged with second-degree murder. He has been jailed since Monday and is currently being held at the Norm Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent.

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Seattlepi.com reporter Levi Pulkkinen can be reached at 206-448-8348 or levipulkkinen@seattlepi.com. Follow Levi on Twitter at twitter.com/levipulk.