Baby found dead in Harris County hotel drawer, parents now charged with murder

Nearly a year after a baby girl was found dead inside a hotel drawer in west Harris County, her parents, Destiny Campos and Jeremy Fancher, are now charged with murder.

Both parents told KPRC 2’s Corley Peel that they were innocent during previous coverage.

PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Family seeks answers after baby’s body found in hotel drawer

Campos was taken into custody and booked in the Harris County Jail on Friday night. Fancher was arrested by San Angelo police and remains in the Tom Green County Jail without bond.

Authorities say his current girlfriend, Marilyn Jennifer Mork, has also been arrested and taken into custody. She was charged with hindering apprehension, according to the Tom Green County Jail.

The incident happened on May 26, 2024, when first responders were called to a Days Inn off Rancho Mission Drive in the Mission Bend area.

Inside Room 111, they found a four-month-old baby unresponsive, pulled from a drawer, and placed on the bed as paramedics tried to revive her. She was pronounced dead at 1:11 p.m.

According to court documents, the child’s parents, Destiny Campos and Jeremy Fancher, had been living in the hotel with their baby girl and her 18-month-old brother.

Both were initially charged with injury to a child, but prosecutors have since upgraded those charges to murder.

According to court documents, Campos told detectives that Fancher had a habit of placing the baby in the drawer, allegedly because her crying annoyed him. Sometimes, she said, he would stuff towels around the edges of the drawer to muffle the sound and prevent the baby from kicking it open.

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The day the baby died, Campos told investigators she asked Fancher to watch the kids while she slept. When she woke up hours later, both Fancher and the baby were gone.

She told investigators he later returned without the child and asked her, “Did you check on her? Did you hear her?” That’s when they opened the drawer and discovered the baby wasn’t breathing.

Fancher admitted to police that he had been the one to place the child in the drawer, using a hospital blanket, but claimed he went to the store and came back to find the drawer closed and the baby unresponsive.

A housekeeper at the hotel told investigators she had previously found the baby crying inside the drawer while Campos was passed out and couldn’t be woken up. She reported it to hotel management, urging them to call CPS. She also said she saw towels or blankets stuffed around the drawer.

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According to her account, Campos just laughed it off, saying “it was okay.” Fancher was never present during those encounters.

Campos’ grandmother, Luann Simon, told detectives her granddaughter had admitted to putting the baby in the drawer several times, often when she and Fancher wanted “alone time.” She also alleged Fancher had locked up the baby’s things in his car to control Campos.

Simon said Campos, who was pregnant again after her daughter’s death, once said: “I’m gonna have a girl. That replaces the one I lost.”

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The Harris County Medical Examiner’s Office performed an autopsy the day after the baby’s death. Although no visible injuries were found, the cause was ruled homicide by suffocation, based on the overall investigative findings.

Both Campos and Fancher are now behind bars on murder charges, and with Mork’s arrest, the case continues to unfold.