The last time Brittany Cotton saw her 2-year-old daughter alive, she was peacefully asleep.
Hours later, the child was dead — apparently beaten to death while a man Cotton thought she knew well watched the little girl, the grieving mother said Sunday.
The death of Armaney Cotton was ruled a homicide Sunday after the little girl was found unresponsive Saturday afternoon at a home in the Englewood neighborhood, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office. Police and family said the little girl was bruised throughout her body and also had what appeared to be human bite marks on her body.
“Somebody tortured my child, and they beat her to death,” Cotton, 19, said Sunday at her South Shore home.
Cotton, a housekeeper at a downtown hotel, said she dropped Armaney off at the Englewood home in the 5500 block of South Emerald Avenue about 7 a.m. Saturday so a man at the home could watch the child while Cotton went to work.
At 4:42 p.m, the little girl was declared dead, according to the medical examiner’s office.
Chicago police are conducting a death investigation, news affairs Officer John Mirabelli said. No one had been charged Sunday afternoon, police said, though the man was being questioned.
Officials from the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services are investigating, spokesman Kendall Marlowe said. The agency has not had any previous contact with the family, Marlowe said.
Relatives remembered Armaney as a “bright little girl” who loved the color pink and cartoons.
“She was the joy of the household,” said cousin Demetria Cobbs, 21.
Cousin Thelma Moore, 20, said, “We will never see her pretty smile.”
Cotton, the girl’s mother, through heavy sobs, added, “I can’t kiss her (anymore).”
Tribune reporter Rosemary Sobol contributed.
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