KENNETT, Mo. (AP) - Court records say a southeast Missouri man has confessed to suffocating a 3-year-old neighbor girl who had been playing in his backyard pool.
Forty-three-year-old Shawn Morgan is charged with first-degree murder, armed criminal action and tampering with evidence in connection with the disappearance of Breeann Rodriguez.
The child was last seen Aug. 6 in front of her home near Senath, about 200 miles south of St. Louis.
Authorities say Morgan admitted to grabbing Breeann and suffocating her after finding her standing on his pool's ladder.
The probable cause statement says Morgan told police he tossed the girl's body in the same trash bag he used to suffocate her and threw it into a floodway ditch along Missouri 164.
No attorney was listed for him in online court records.