Baby Kate accused Sean Phillips acquitted of first-degree murder

A judge has acquitted Sean Phillips of first-degree murder charges in the case of the disappearance of  Katherine (“Baby Kate”) Phillips.

Judge Peter Wadel issued a directed verdict on the first-degree murder charges midday Tuesday, Oct. 11. Judge Wadel said there is not “at all” enough evidence to support first-degree murder charges.

However, Judge Peter Wadel said he will allow the jury to deliberate about second-degree murder charges. Specific information will be put into the jury instructions about considering second-degree murder.

The prosecution rested its case Tuesday morning after calling a lead detective in the case back to the stand. He told jurors the day Kate went missing all of the trash in Mason County was segregated and searched before it went to the landfill and that there were numerous searches for Baby Kate, which were unsuccessful.

During the prosecution evidence the jury also heard from John Long, a corrections deputy for the Mason County Sheriff’s Department. Long said he escorted Phillips to the shower facility and then watched as Phillips put his dirty clothes into a hamper. But after Phillips got to his cell he wanted to get a piece of paper.

Long refused to let him return but the guard went and got the paper out of Phillips’ pocket and made a copy of it. That note would claim that he took the baby to “a guy” who would bring Kate to a family wanting to adopt her.

But it was a note intercepted more than a year later by Craig Smith, a former employee at Ionia’s Michigan Reformatory that would become a main piece of evidence used to demonstrate what Phillips did, according to prosecutors.

“It appeared to be a confession letter,” Smith testified.

In the letter, Phillips said he was trying to move his seat when it was blocked by Kate’s car seat. He wrote he became angry, pulled out the seat roughly and Kate was thrown from the seat.

“I didn’t know. I’m so sorry,” Phillips wrote.

He went on to write “Held her for a long time. Seemed like forever. Maybe an hour, maybe a minute. Might not have been long. I can’t explain a lot. Some things can only be lived.” He also wrote that he panicked and did not get help. He denied that he left her in a swamp or a lake, but in a “peaceful place.”