Georgia teen who shot baby in stroller claims victims family wanted the insurance money

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Defense attorneys are set to strongly suggest that the real killers of a toddler brutally shot to death in his stroller were his parents, who had a financial interest in his death - and that their 18-year-old defendant who goes on trial this week is not guilty.

Antonio Santiago had learned to walk, but not yet talk, when he was killed March 21, six weeks after his first birthday.

He was strapped in his stroller, out for a walk with his mother a few blocks from their apartment near the Georgia coast, when someone shot the boy between the eyes with a .22-caliber bullet the size of a garden pea.

De'Marquise Elkin, 18, who has been charged as the shooter, is scheduled to stand trial next week in a courthouse far from the scene of the crime.

Kevin Gough, a public defender who is Elkins' lead attorney, has strongly suggested in pretrial motions that the real killers are the child's own parents.

‘Other evidence of record suggests Sherry West is mentally unstable, gave several inconsistent accounts of how the crime transpired, and had a financial interest in the death of her son in the form of an insurance policy,’ Gough said in a court motion filed August 5.