Janiyah Wilson was just six months old when she was killed. Now, it is her mother, 22-year-old Mesha Sherrell Wilson, who has been charged with her death.

Selma Police announced they had arrested Wilson in connection with the death last Thursday of her 6-month-old. She has been charged with capital murder and placed in the Dallas County Jail with no bond.

Wilson was taken into custody around 4:30 p.m. at the Dallas County Courthouse, after a court hearing involving Department of Human Resources, according to District Attorney Michael Jackson.

As for Selma Chief of Police William T. Riley, the department’s work does not end with Monday’s arrest, rather “it is just beginning.”

“Even though an arrest has been made, we are still continuing the investigation,” Riley said just moments after the arrest. “We are still going to run down leads.

“The damage to this child, the skull damage to this infant, was substantial.”

For District Attorney Michael Jackson, the evidence he has seen of this homicide was horrific.

“This was a brutal, brutal crime,” Jackson said. “I’ve seen a lot of things over the course of being district attorney; this is the worst thing I’ve seen happen to a child’s skull.”

Both Riley and Jackson confirmed the fatal injuries were to the back of the infant’s head. But neither offered any information about a motive or how the fatal injuries were inflicted.

“It didn’t come from just an accident, a fall,” Jackson said. “However the child’s head was injured, it was enough force to crack the skull.”

The reason Wilson faces capital murder charges — the most severe criminal charge in Alabama — is because of the age of the child killed, Jackson said.

As for Riley, he knows this was a difficult and sad case for his department to work.

“These are difficult, especially when you have a 6-month-old child, it is difficult. Because you look at the child and she is basically defenseless,” Riley said. “At that age, as a homicide victim, it is left up to law enforcement to speak for the child. And, especially, as a parent being a possible suspect, we have to speak for the child, speak for the victim.”

During the investigation, Riley said his detectives worked to determine who had custody of the child during the time they believe the injuries were sustained.

“We can’t give exact time, but we do feel the injuries were recent to a degree — a number of hours — before the call to 911 on Thursday,” Riley said. “We are more concerned with who the child was in the care of during that window of time. In this case, we are saying the child was in the care of the mother.”

The 911 call Riley referred to came from Wilson herself while she was driving on Broad Street Thursday afternoon. During the call, she told operators her child was having trouble breathing.

Operators told Wilson to pull off the road and await medical help. That help arrived moments later when Selma Police Officer Kenneth Keith arrived and found the 6-month-old unresponsive and not breathing.

Keith administered CPR on the child until paramedics arrived and rushed the child to Vaughan Regional Medical Center, where she was later pronounced dead.

“The extent of the injuries was not really known until after the medial examiner’s preliminary autopsy report Friday,” Riley said. “Any time you have a death of a child, especially a child of that age, and you don’t see any major outward signs of injuries, and the child stops breathing and dies, it automatically throws up a red flag. That’s automatic.

“With any death investigation, we operate as if it is suspicious in nature to make sure we cross your ‘t’s’ and dot the ‘i’s’,” Riley said. “This is to make sure we do not miss anything.”

The suspect’s two other children have been placed in the custody of extended family and Jackson said Wilson should be arraigned on the charges either Wednesday afternoon or Thursday.

Since the charge is capital murder, Jackson said his office will be asking that no bond be placed on Wilson and that she be kept in custody.