Babysitter Kills Baby, Then Takes Lifeless Body to McDonald’s
“Now cut the crap, Marissa. This is the third time we’ve had a discussion with you about a child, an infant in your care, and now one is dead. One is dead.” > “Need to hand a mother their dead child and say, ‘Have a nice night.'”
When Heather picked up her two sons from the babysitter’s house on October 18th, 2018, in Wausau, Wisconsin, she had no idea this was about to become the worst night of her life. The following investigation would reveal one woman’s unbelievable capacity for cruelty and the lengths she would go to hide from the consequences.
Disaster had already struck by the time Heather picked up her two-month-old son, Benson, and his older brother from the babysitter, Marissa Titsort. She headed to the laundromat with the boys and her sister, where she would make a heartbreaking discovery. All appears well until Heather tries to take Benson out of his car seat. The security camera captured the panic that followed. While Heather tries to revive her baby, her sister Jesse calls 911.
“Please, please, this baby is dead. We’re at the laundromat… My sister’s baby is dead. We just picked him up from the babysitter.”
The 911 dispatcher urges them to start CPR. “Ma’am, I need you to start CPR on that baby.” “We don’t know how. We don’t know how.” “Blow into his mouth two times. Plug his nose.” “He’s freezing cold already.” “Okay. Ma’am, I need you to take your hand and put it in the middle of his chest, and you’re going to push on his chest. And count with me. One, two, three, four… Keep pushing. Are you still doing compressions?” “I am. He’s gurgling at me.” “Is he breathing?” “Where’s the ambulance? He’s not breathing. He’s just gurgling at me.”
But Benson wasn’t the only child harmed. His toddler brother was sweating profusely and lethargic. He was rushed to the ER for an emergency assessment, too. However, Benson was not so fortunate. Tragically, there was nothing the paramedics could do, and he was declared deceased.
“SOMEBODY KILLED THAT BABY. NO.” It was the sickening cause of death that would soon rattle the entire police department.
Eventually, the police ask Benson’s heartbroken mother, Heather, and aunt, Jesse, if they have any idea what could have happened. The information she and her sister share paints a chilling picture, and it all centers around their babysitter, 28-year-old Marissa Titsort.
“That baby was gone,” Jesse recalled. “And it was weird cuz he had his brother’s hat on and it was like over his eyes. So I pulled the hat up… and I pulled his blanket down. His neck was sitting there… I don’t know why it was sitting in his chest. The hat was over his eyes. I pulled the hat up cuz I always think that when they wake up and the hat’s over their eyes, they’re going to be scared.”
When asked about the handoff, they noted Marissa’s strange behavior. “She didn’t even let us inside. She met us at the door… Her face, this girl’s face was beat. What I thought in my head was, ‘Jesus Christ, what the hell is she on?’ And it was just… something was really off.”
Heather and Jesse only learned that day that Marissa was facing allegations of child abuse. But the police were already well acquainted with her. With one child dead, another in the ER, and no idea what Marissa might be capable of, they couldn’t afford to let her get away. They immediately rushed over to Marissa’s house to question her, but they didn’t know that Marissa was already ahead of them.
“Marissa, we have a warrant for your arrest. Come out, Marissa. Marissa, we’re not going away. Open the door.”
When no one answers the door, police are forced to take matters into their own hands before it’s too late. They breach the apartment, clearing the rooms, but find it empty. With Marissa, her boyfriend Adam, and their infant son missing, a chilling reality begins to cloud the investigation: she could already be on the run.
They ping Marissa’s cell phone, which shows up at a nearby hotel. As officers rush to the location, they’re determined not to let her slip away this time.
“Morning, Adam. Is Marissa here?” “What are you guys doing here? You guys are harassing the hell out of us… Why you got to come here?” “Well, because we need to talk to her about something new… Marissa, I need you to wake up.” “Why are you guys here?” Marissa asks. “Cuz we wanted to get away… from everything. Isn’t it against the law to come stay in a hotel room for the night?”
What investigators don’t know is that they haven’t even uncovered the worst part yet. They begin questioning Marissa about her day.
“Tell me about taking care of him today.” “Oh, I was just watching him and he was fine… I fed him once and then he slept and we went outside… I put him in the pack and play and then I had this little video monitor and I had to check on him.”
She explains that her boyfriend, Adam, got home around 6:30 p.m. from hunting, and then they went to eat at McDonald’s. Investigators can confirm this from the restaurant’s CCTV footage. But she left out a key detail.
“Did you take him out of the car seat at McDonald’s?” investigators press. “No. He was sleeping. He fussed a little bit and then I gave him his nookie and that was about it.”
But when they talked to Marissa’s boyfriend, Adam, his story went a little differently. “I picked him up and put him in there. He was absolutely normal to me. As soon as you pick him up, he whines and stuff… crying and everything else.”
Establishing who interacted with Benson and when is a critical part of determining his time of death. The police finally break the news of Benson’s demise to Marissa.
“Why is he dead? We were hoping that you could shed some light on that.” “I don’t know what happened. I promise. I don’t know what happened.”
The police confront her lies directly. “Somebody who lives in this town checks into a hotel at 9:50 p.m. after a baby died in their apartment. And that’s also a lie because she texted you and told you that he died… Now, cut the crap, Marissa. This is the third time we’ve had a discussion with you about a child, an infant in your care, and now one is dead.”
Marissa desperately tries to defend herself. “I would not kill a baby… I left him in the pack and play after we got back in from outside. He didn’t make any noise. I have that video monitor thing. I didn’t kill him, I promise.”
Marissa’s boyfriend, Adam, was the first to speak up back in 2010 when he told police he feared that Marissa was hurting their kids. The couple’s four children were removed from their household. But Marissa had since given birth to a fifth child and was pregnant again, continuing to babysit without intervention. During this time, two more infants had been injured in her care in circumstances eerily similar to Benson’s death.
Marissa eventually changes her story, admitting she found the baby cold and unresponsive before Adam got home but chose not to call the police because she was scared they would take her own baby away.
Inside the hotel, Adam has a very different reaction to the terrible news. “Dead? Come on now. I swear to God, I did not know this.”
But it gets far worse. Marissa shares a horrifying detail of what she did with the body.
“Did you put clothes on him? Did you put his snowsuit and hat on?” “Yes. Put a snowsuit and hat on.” “And Adam didn’t notice that he was dead?” “He probably just thought he was sleeping.”
That’s right. In all the security footage from McDonald’s, Benson is already dead. Marissa describes what she did next, her demeanor hauntingly casual. “I just left him in his car seat and then we watched a movie… I put that hat on there. I was scared. I didn’t kill the baby.”
She is placed under arrest for charges brought against her back in August when an 11-month-old girl in her care received severe facial injuries. Marissa agrees to go to her apartment with the police to show them exactly where Benson died.
At the apartment, she walks them through the scene, claiming she placed Benson in the pack and play, turned on the video monitor, and went to wrap Christmas presents. She says when she checked on him later, he was cold, so she put him in his snowsuit and car seat to hide it. However, police notice the baby monitor is completely unplugged.
Unsatisfied with her excuses, the police turn to the autopsy for answers. The results reveal that everything Marissa told them was a lie. They sit down with her again the next day.
“As we discussed, I did go down for an autopsy, and I can say without a doubt that what you’re telling me is not what happened to him… He’s got very severe injuries to his head.”
Among other things, the autopsy revealed that Benson had a fractured skull. “Science doesn’t lie,” the detective tells her. “He couldn’t have sustained the injuries before he was dropped off… And the type of injuries that we see were almost instantaneous. The second he was hurt, he died.”
Marissa continues to deny it. “I didn’t do anything to his head. I did not do it.”
The detective pushes harder. “Unless it was harder… could it have happened more than one time? Because it’s more than one time. And when you did that, did he stop breathing?”
This approach finally seems to get through to Marissa. “Maybe I put him down too hard and I didn’t kill him or anything… I just placed him in there.”
But this still doesn’t cover the extremity of the infant’s injuries. Benson had three separate blunt force trauma injuries to his head, and his tailbone was snapped and displaced. The medical examiner stated these could only have been caused by the use of significant force.
“Can you show me? Was it with all your force, all your strength? You just threw him in there?” “I think so… Not really as hard, but hard enough. He had some good release. So obviously that’s where he got all his injuries… he pretty violently bounced around in the playpen.”
Marissa’s reaction to hurling Benson to his death reveals a whole new level of depravity.
“Maybe you were in shock. Like, ‘What did I just do?'” “Oh, I was in shock of what had just happened to him, what I did to him. So, I was frustrated… I just cried for a couple seconds. And then I put him in the middle, face down. If I would have known how to do CPR, I would have done it. But I just blew in his mouth.”
On March 8th, 2022, Marissa Titsort pleaded guilty to first-degree reckless homicide. She was sentenced to 40 years in prison plus 20 years of extended supervision. Despite his terrible symptoms, Benson’s older brother survived and made a full recovery.
