Baby Found Dead When Sleeping Father Wakes

Newport Beach police are investigating the death of an infant girl who apparently died when her father rolled on top of her while asleep on a couch in their home, a spokesman said Monday.

Six-week-old Tyra Corbett was pronounced dead Sunday morning at Hoag Hospital. Her father, James B. Corbett III, 21, was arrested on suspicion of involuntary manslaughter and freed on $10,000 bond Sunday night, according to Newport Beach Police Officer Robert Oakley.

Oakley said the baby’s mother, Michelle Marie Koger, 20, awoke about 7:20 a.m. Sunday in the family’s apartment in the 1300 block of West Balboa Boulevard and went to the crib to check on her daughter.

Discovering the baby gone, she went into the living room, where she found Corbett asleep on the couch, he said. Koger shook Corbett to awake him, “and when he rolls over, the baby’s underneath him.”

The infant was not breathing, he said, and the couple called paramedics, who rushed Tyra to the hospital.

A spokesman for the coroner’s office said a cause of death has not been determined pending tissue and toxicological studies. Oakley said a doctor’s report indicates that there was no evidence of other abuse but that police are investigating “to determine all the facts in the case in order to present them properly in court.”

Investigators are also examining whether the father was under the influence of alcohol or drugs at the time, he said. Although it appears that the baby died when her father rolled on top of her and that no foul play was involved, Oakley said, the possibility of foul play “will be definitely investigated.”

Oakley said it was not known why Corbett took the baby from her crib.

Neither Corbett nor Koger could be reached for comment.