Chesterfield Baby Death Investigation Update

CHESTERFIELD, S.C. – The new wooden cross bearing Harlee Lewis’ name, outside the Chesterfield home where she briefly lived, is now surrounded by gifts dropped off by people grieving the 11-month-old baby’s death. One woman, there with her young daughter, says, “It touched my heart,” and “I just felt like I needed to come out and she wanted to bring something, too.”

As the memorial grows, so is the curiosity about what exactly happened inside the Lewis house on Tuesday. Sheriff Jay Brooks says deputies executed a second search warrant Thursday. He declined to tell us what they found. He would say the home was free of alcohol, drugs or pills. But, “We were concerned about the lack of 1-year-old appropriate food in the house.”

Brooks has this warning for people who assume the baby was murdered: “I wanna warn you, there is a good possibility that this child died of some type of natural causes.”

While the sheriff awaits autopsy results to determine exactly how Harlee died, he is also hoping that on Monday, a judge will order a mental evaluation of the baby’s 19-year-old mother. Investigators continue to question Breanna Lewis, as well as her friends and family.

The baby’s father, the Sheriff says, died, horrifically, and traumatically in front of Breanna and Harlee. Brooks says, “Last October, he walked into this lady’s house, she was living in Laurinburg, holding the baby in her arms, he walked up to her, pulled a pistol out of his pocket, and shot himself in the temple.”

The Sheriff tells WCCB that Breanna’s mother, Harlee’s grandmother, now has custody of the baby’s body. He says, “She has shown interest in taking at least responsibility for having the child buried. But she also said that she was torn between what money she had, burying the child, and trying to get her daughter out on bond.”

Breanna Lewis is being held on $71,000 bond, currently, for three charges. The Sheriff says if she was able to post bond, he would request that she be put on a GPS monitor. There will be a candlelight vigil next week to honor and remember Harlee Lewis. It’s Wednesday from 6 to 7 PM on West Main Street in Chesterfield. The Chesterfield County Pee Dee Coalition is hosting it.