Man charged with murder of toddler found in ditch near Blooming Prairie
Published 6:34 pm Thursday, March 5, 2020
By Mike Stoll, Austin Daily Herald
Dariaz Higgins
AUSTIN — A Milwaukee, Wisconsin, man who is a suspect in the murder of his 2-year-old daughter has officially been charged in Mower County District Court.
Dariaz Lewis Higgins, also known as Dariaz Lewis Higgins-Taylor, 35, has been charged with felony second-degree murder-without intent.
According to the court complaint, a passerby discovered the body of a child, later determined to be 2-year-old Noelani Robinson, on March 15, 2019, wrapped in a blanket in the east ditch north of the intersection of U.S. Highway 218 and Minnesota Highway 30 in Steele County.
Noelani Robinson had been the subject of an Amber Alert prior to the discovery of her body.
An investigation revealed that the victim had been at Rodeway Inn in Austin with her father, Higgins, until about March 10, 2019.
Higgins was arrested March 13, 2019, in Milwaukee as a suspect in the shooting death of the child’s mother, 24-year-old Sierra Robinson. Higgins gave a statement to Milwaukee investigators in which he positively identified the child’s body as Noelani Robinson. He indicated they were at Rodeway Inn and the child fell off a toilet and subsequently died. He then said he wrapped her in blankets and left her on the motel room floor by the bed for a couple of days.
Higgins told investigators he went to Milwaukee, got a vehicle and returned to Austin. He indicated in the early hours of March 10, 2019, he placed the child’s body in the vehicle. He said he was with his friend Deloise Lipsey when they drove toward Minneapolis, dropping Noelani’s body in the ditch along the way. He indicated he knew she was dead and that he could not travel with her.
An autopsy by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension determined Noelani died from non-accidental blunt force trauma and that she suffered multiple blunt-force injuries to her head, scleral hemorrhaging, conjunctival petechiae and brain hemorrhages. There were also multiple injuries to her extremities.
See what happened last night in the PM report here.
