Police arrest man accused in Belleville toddler’s death

Police arrested a 24-year-old man Thursday about two weeks after St. Clair County prosecutors charged him in the April death of a Belleville toddler.

Gyasi Campbell is facing first-degree murder charges in the death of 2-year-old Kane Friess-Wylie. The United States Marshals Fugitive Task Force found him on St. Michael Street in Cahokia, according to St. Clair County Capt. Bruce Fleshren.

Officers went to Gyasi Campbell’s mother’s Berkley, Missouri, home Dec. 15 to arrest the man, St. Clair County Sheriff’s Capt. Bruce Fleshren said last week. However, when police arrived, Campbell had already left.

Police had searched the area for Campbell since then.

“We thank the marshals for their efforts in locating Campbell and are happy to have him off the streets,” Sheriff Richard Watson said in the release. “At this point we leave his fate to the justice system, and hope that the family of little Kane can rest easier knowing Campbell is in custody.”

Campbell brought his then girlfriend’s toddler to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital the evening of April 13, according to a police search warrant previously obtained by the News-Democrat.

Kane was flown almost immediately from St. Elizabeth’s to Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital in St. Louis, where he later died. Hospital staff contacted the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, which called the sheriff’s department.

According to a medical examiner’s report, Kane died of a head injury.

Gyasi Campbell was booked on $5,000 bail the morning of Dec. 6 on a charge of violating his bond in an unrelated case as St. Clair County prosecutors began reviewing investigator’s findings in Kane’s death, according to St. Clair County State’s Attorney Brendan Kelly.

Campbell posted the required 10 percent, $500 in cash, for bond in the unrelated case and was released from jail the same day, according to officials.

Investigators initially held Campbell as a person of interest in the hours after Kane’s death in April, according to search warrant documents. However, they released him shortly afterward while the investigation continued.

Kane’s 24-year-old mother, Lindsey Friess, told police she returned to her home in Belleville on April 13 and found her boyfriend holding the boy in a reclining chair, according to search warrant documents.

The mother told police the child was conscious but was moaning. He vomited right after Friess arrived.

Friess called 911 and Campbell put the toddler’s “head/face under a water faucet in an effort to revive him,” police wrote in the affidavit. They then took him to the hospital.

Kane’s mother has said that details about her ex-boyfriend’s account of what happened to the toddler has changed several times — such as which room the injury occurred in and how her child was injured.

“There was no physical injury on Kane at all — there was nothing on him,” Friess told the BND in September. “No bruises, no blood — nothing. He was just acting funny.”

Campbell is not the toddler’s biological father; however, Friess and Campbell share a young daughter.

This story was originally published December 28, 2017 at 12:16 PM with the headline "Police arrest man accused in Belleville toddler’s death."