A high-profile Columbia infant death case has been resolved with a guilty plea to new charges and with a second degree murder charge being dropped.
939 the Eagle News was at the Boone County Courthouse on Friday afternoon, when 32-year-old Staffone Fountain pleaded guilty to amended charges of abandonment of a corpse and involuntary manslaughter for the 2017 death of his infant daughter, Samone Daniels. Fountain has been sentenced to seven years in prison.
The infant’s remains were discovered in 2019 in a tire near McKnight tire along Columbia’s North Providence. Fountain’s defense attorney, Columbia’s Jennifer Bukowsky, tells 939 the Eagle that it’s a fitting outcome to a very sad case:
“It is important for parents especially of prematurely born infants not to keep a baby in a car seat any longer than is necessary to transport that child. It’s unsafe, particularly for (a) premature infant with health problems to be kept in a sleeping environment like that. My client (Fountain) pled guilty to recklessly causing his daughter’s death by keeping her in an unsafe sleeping environment causing an accidental positional asphyxiation,” Bukowsky says.
Former Columbia police chief Geoff Jones announced the charges against Fountain during an emotional June 2022 press conference at city hall. A Boone County grand jury later indicted Fountain for second degree murder, endangering the welfare of a child and abandonment of a corpse. The murder charge was dismissed, just before Fountain pleaded guilty Friday in court. The August 2023 indictment alleges that Fountain struck or placed his infant daughter Samone Daniels “in an unsafe sleeping environment or by a combination of striking S.J.D. and placing S.J.D. in an unsafe sleeping environment,” causing the child’s death.
“It was because I had brought to their attention (a) body of research showing that more and more parents are keeping their babies in these car seats for long periods of time. And it is not safe to do that. They’re only safe for transporting the child, and they need to be properly installed at the correct angle. Otherwise you can have tragic positional asphyxiations occur,” Bukowsky tells 939 the Eagle.
The infant’s remains were discovered in 2019 in a tire near Columbia’s North Providence, near McKnight Tire.
The mother of Samone’s twin brother testified during Friday’s sentencing hearing. Carrie, who is from St. Louis, tells the court that the infant’s death caused pain in her heart, adding that her heart is broken. Carrie sobbed, as she told Boone County Circuit Judge Kevin Crane that Samone is loved.
