Felton grandmother kills baby, neighbors left puzzled

Angela Bingham turned herself into police Tuesday, admitting she had killed her 3-year-old grandson and wanted to kill herself. Wednesday. 47 ABC went to the Felton, Del. neighborhood and spoke with neighbors who say there’s more to the murder than what may meet the eye.

Bingham’s neighbor Letoshia Tiggs said the grandmother and son had a loving relationship. According to her, Bingham was facing eviction and the possibility of losing her grandson. That alone may have been the motivation for murder.

“She killed her grandson because she felt that if she could not raise her grandson she did not want nobody else to raise him,” Tiggs said. “That’s how much she loved him she was just that over protective she didn’t want to send him nowhere else to where he can be hurt and she was not there to protect him.”
 

According to court documents Bingham said in a police interview that she had wanted to kill her grandson and herself and turned on the gas in the house, but when that didn’t work she chose to suffocate the child with a washcloth as he lay in bed, telling the child before she killed him that it was time to go. Bingham told police she then tried killing herself by drinking bleach, hanging herself and taking pills but she survived. 

In the nine days between when she allegedly killer her grandson and when she turned her self in,  the child’s body lay decomposing on the bed. Police reports showing that when they entered the house, a pungent odor was released.

Days before that, Tiggs daughter had smelled the same scent when she went to check in Bingham.  

“She opened the door a little bit so I could see her eyes, I smelt something and then I asked her if she was okay, if everything was alright and she said yeah they were sick and he was asleep. I asked her what the smell was she said food had went bad in her refrigerator,” said Jyala Pitts. “It just smelt like something was rotten, I mean it didn’t smell like food it just smelt nasty to be honest.”

Despite the odor Pitts and her mother believed Bingham’s alibi, never thinking murder was even a possibility in what they described as a loving relationship.