Children die by dozens as adults snap

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - Christopher Rains, indicted Wednesday in the gunshot death of his baby daughter, is one of many New Mexicans accused of killing nearly three dozen young children this year.

Albuquerque has had some unusually brutal cases, according to the Bernalillo County District Attorney's Office, which is hoping 2009 is an aberration.

"This has really been the year for tragedy for children in Albuquerque," Pat Davis, a spokesman for District Attorney Kari Brandenburg, told KRQE News 13. "It's been so extraordinary we don't want to see this happen again."

Among the Albuquerque children police allege died at the hands of one or both parents this year is Robert Killion's infant son.

"My whole world was taken away," Killion told News 13 in August.

The boy, not yet a year old, was smothered with a pillow in his crib. His mother, Stephanie Ledford, killed the child because he wouldn't stop crying, investigators charged in a criminal complaint.

In a case that left the city in shock a woman visiting an Albuquerque park spotted a tiny foot protruding from the sand in a playground. Ty Toribio had been suffocated and buried allegedly by his mother.

Tiffany Toribio has just been tossed out of a nearby apartment where she had been staying. Police quoted her as saying she killed the child because she didn't want him growing up with no one caring for him the way no one cared for her.

On Wednesday a grand jury indicted Rains, 22, on multiple counts including murder in the Dec. 1 shooting of his 9-month-old daughter in the head during an argument with her mother.

"He had on at least two other occasions had pointed a gun at the child's head," Davis said.

The state Children, Youth and Families Department reports least 35 children have died from abuse in New Mexico this year.

In a lot of those deaths the parents or caretakers just snapped, according to CYFD.