Missing Michigan Baby Kate's father charged with open murder: Father's shoes the key to locating the 4 ½-month-old baby's body

On Friday, the father of a missing Michigan baby, four-and-a-half-month-old Katherine Phillips, also known as Baby Kate, was charged with open murder.


Baby Kate disappeared on June 29, 2011, while in the care of her father. However, while the father of the missing Michigan baby, 23-year-old Sean Phillips has been serving a 10- to 15-year prison term for the unlawful imprisonment of his daughter since last year, authorities had not been able to charge him with the murder of his daughter until Friday, Oct. 4, 2013.

"Police believe he dumped her body in what Phillips himself -- in what appeared to be a letter he wrote from prison last year to Baby Kate’s mother -- called a 'peaceful place'.”

Investigators have said that seeds and other material on Sean Phillips’ shoes could be crucial to locating a body of the missing Michigan baby.

"The last major development in the case was a plant-based search in late June to narrow the search area for the long-missing Katherine Phillips. Authorities were looking for specific plants, especially particular types of moss and grass-like sedges, that rarely grow near each other but whose traces were found on the shoes or clothing of Sean Michael Phillips, the baby’s father, on June 29, 2011. That’s the day the 4 ½-month-old infant disappeared while reportedly in Sean Phillips’ custody."

On July 1, 2011, the mother of the missing Michigan baby recalled the last day with her baby girl.