LUDINGTON — A Mason County radio station is reporting that a local private investigator has been hired for the defendant charged with kidnapping the missing Ludington baby who disappeared in June.
Sean Michael Phillips
The station, WMOM 102.7 FM, posted on their website this morning that “a local private investigator is digging up information for the defense of Sean Michael Phillips” the father and alleged abductor of the infant, Katherine Shelbie-Elizabeth Phillips. The infant was nearly 5 months old when police say her father drove away with her.
Phillips’ attorney, Annette Smedley, of Muskegon, could not be reached early Friday in order to confirm that the private investigator, apparently from Scottville, has been hired to assist in her client’s case.
Phillips, 21, is currently lodged in the Mason County Jail in connection with the baby’s disappearance, charged with unlawful imprisonment, a 15-year felony, and parental kidnapping, punishable up to a year and a day in jail.
He is slated to stand trial on those charges on Jan. 17 in Mason County Circuit Court and is being held on a $250,000 cash or surety bond. Phillips has refused to tell authorities what happened to the child.
Phillips, the only suspect in the case, was arrested on June 29, the day the baby’s mother, Ariel Courtland, reported that Phillips drove away with the child in his 1998 silver Oldsmobile Intrigue.
Katherine Shelbie-Elizabeth Phillips, nearly 5 months
Authorities believe Phillips did something with the baby sometime between 1 and 4 p.m. June 29. When police questioned him at his parents’ home that same day in Victory Township near Scottville, the infant’s clothing was found in his pants pocket and her car seat and her diaper bag were in the trunk of his vehicle.
Earlier, the couple had been arguing in Phillips’ vehicle with the baby in the back seat on June 29 in the parking lot of Courtland’s Ludington apartment complex, police have said.
When Courtland briefly exited the vehicle to get a stroller from her apartment and then returned to the parking lot, Phillips drove off with the infant, police have said.
http://liarcatchers.com/missing_persons_investigations.html
Authorities have repeatedly said Courtland is not a suspect and she continues to cooperate with investigators in an effort to locate her daughter.
Anyone with information about his activities during that time frame or the whereabouts of the baby is asked to call Mason-Oceana 911 at (231) 869-5858.
