Edgewood man charged with homicide 14 years after shaking infant daughter

An Edgewood man is charged with homicide in the Feb. 1 death of his daughter – 14 years after he shook her as an infant and left her with brain damage and a seizure disorder.

Allegheny County Police are searching for Ariden Jackson, who was 23 when authorities filed aggravated assault and endangerment charges against him for shaking his then-4-week-old daughter Janiya because he was frustrated with the crying child. He served 10 years in prison and was released in September 2016 after pleading guilty to charges against him, a Department of Corrections spokeswoman said.

Now 37, Jackson is charged with homicide for Janiya’s Feb. 1 death at a home in Beaver County. She was 13.

Police described Jackson as 5 feet, 8 inches tall and about 175 pounds.

Janiya had been living with a family friend in Beaver Falls for the past several years, according to the homicide charges against her father.

The coroner’s office listed her cause of death as a result of complications from a seizure disorder and ruled it a homicide, investigators said.

Janiya was injured May 22, 2005, at her family’s home on Locust Street in McKees Rocks, according to police. Jackson first told police he’d dropped the infant while changing her diaper but then admitted that he had shaken her, police wrote in the complaint.

He told police he shook her three times because she would not stop crying.

“(Jackson) continued to explain that (Janiya) messed her diaper when he tried to feed her a bottle, and she kept turning her head away, and the neighbor’s music was very loud,” police wrote in the complaint. “Jackson stated that he was frustrated, angry and unfortunately took it out on (Janiya).”

Police said Jackson reported that the infant stopped crying when he shook her and instead began to make a hiccuping noise.

Doctors at UPMC Children’s Hospital told investigators at the time that Janiya suffered brain damage “consistent only with significant trauma to the brain,” and the child would have showed symptoms of the injuries immediately.