2 arrested in Paducah after infant death

PADUCAH, Ky. (KBSI) – Two people were arrested after the death of an infant in Paducah in November.

Victoria P. Martin, 40, of Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, faces a charge of murder.

Eugene B. Thomas Jr., 68, of Martin Luther King Jr. Drive faces a charge of first-degree criminal abuse (child 12 or younger).

A woman was arrested in connection with the death of her infant daughter that happened in late 2023.

Det. Danny Slack began investigating after police were called just after 5 a.m. Nov. 28, 2023, to a report of an unresponsive infant.

The first officers to arrive found Victoria Martin holding her one-month-old daughter. They immediately began performing CPR on the infant. The child was taken by ambulance to Baptist
Health Paducah where she was pronounced dead due to suffocation.

Martin refused to talk with detectives, but told Department for Community Based Service (DCBS) workers she was sitting in bed, holding the infant and eating, about 3 a.m. on Nov. 28.

She said she passed out and woke up at 3:40 a.m. to find the child unresponsive and not breathing.

She did not call for help at the time, according to Paducah police. Another adult in the home called 911 after he woke up about 5 a.m. and learned the baby was unresponsive.

Slack obtained toxicology results earlier this month that confirmed Martin was significantly intoxicated at the time, according to police.

Preliminary autopsy results confirmed the child died of positional asphyxiation.

Eugene B. Thomas Jr., the infant’s father, was charged with first-degree criminal abuse. Det. Slack says Thomas knew Martin regularly abuses alcohol, and that she is supposed to be supervised anytime she is with her other two children, but he still left the infant and the other children in her care.

Det. Slack says Martin does not have custody of the two other children, ages 1 and 5, because of previous criminal abuse charges.

Martin was convicted in 2019 of second-degree criminal abuse after her then-seven-month-old daughter sustained a fractured skull and brain bleed.

She was sentenced to four years in prison.

Martin and Thomas were booked into McCracken County Regional Jail.