Three hours separate the time when Marquis Young was left alone with his 8-month-old stepdaughter and when the infant was found in his apartment complex’s trash compactor, police say.

What took place within those three hours remains largely unclear, according to a recently released arrest affidavit. However, about halfway through that time span, Lawrence police officers spoke with Young.

Though he was intoxicated and told a bystander he had nothing to live for, Young was not taken into custody, the affidavit says. Instead, police could not determine that a crime had been committed, and allowed Young to return to his apartment.

Marquis Young

The infant would not be discovered underneath four trash bags for another two hours, the affidavit says.

An arrest affidavit is a document filed by police explaining the grounds for an arrest. Allegations in the affidavit must still be proved in court.

Just before midnight on July 6, a resident of Country Club on 6th Apartments, 2500 W. Sixth St., called police reporting that Young, who also lived in the complex, had been drinking and “tweaking,” the affidavit says.

The resident who called the police alleged Young was making his way through the parking lot, trying to break into cars, and said he “was a Marine and could kill people, he didn’t have anything to live for,” according to the affidavit.

Young had been drinking throughout the evening, and about an hour before police arrived on the scene, he fought with his wife while the infant lay in bed, where she had been since around 8:30 p.m., according to the affidavit.

Around 11:15 p.m., Young’s wife stormed out of their apartment with a pair of friends, the affidavit says. What happened between then and when officers spoke with Young between 11:52 p.m. and 12:26 a.m. remains unclear, although no evidence exists showing “someone besides Marquis going into the apartment during this time span,” the affidavit states.

“Marquis said he went inside and passed out on the couch after the police contacted him,” the affidavit says.

At 2:23 a.m. one of Young’s neighbors, a woman, called police reporting that she had found an infant in the apartment complex’s communal dumpster.

The woman told police she was taking her trash out around 2 a.m. when she thought she heard the sound of kittens meowing, the affidavit says. After digging through the rubbish, she found the baby “with crusted dried blood in her nostrils, blood on one of her legs, and numerous bruises on her forehead.”

A partial medical report showed the infant suffered soft tissue swelling, skull fractures and a “small right subdural hematoma,” the affidavit says, and bruises were also visible across her entire body.

Before she was found in the dumpster, the infant had a bruised right eye, Young told police. Less than a week earlier he grabbed her foot to stop her from crawling into an open oven and the struggle caused her to hit her eye on the oven door, the affidavit says.

Around 5:30 a.m. Young woke up and noticed neither his wife nor the baby at home, the affidavit says. He assumed the two were together and went about looking for his Jeep, which was not parked at his apartment.

Soon, Young encountered his mother-in-law, who lives nearby, the affidavit says. She handed him a phone with his wife on the other line.

Young told his wife to bring the baby home, but she replied that the infant wasn’t with her “and told Marquis to call 911,” the affidavit says.

Once the baby was reported missing, responding officers quickly realized the call was likely connected to the infant found in the apartment complex’s dumpster earlier.

As police interviewed Young, they noticed blood on his shirt and skin, the affidavit says. Collected and later tested, the blood matched the baby’s DNA profile.

An arrest warrant was not issued for Young until July 26, according to Douglas County District Court records. At the time Young was in custody at the Johnson County Jail. He had been arrested on suspicion of battering his wife in Lenexa on July 22.

Young was also arrested on July 13, alongside his wife, after they were accused of disorderly conduct at Perry Lake.

Young and his wife have been married less than a year.

Convicted of the battery charge in Johnson County, Young served several months in jail before he was transferred to Douglas County to face felony charges of attempted first-degree murder and abuse of a child. He also faces a single charge of violating his probation.

Young is currently being held in the Douglas County Jail in lieu of a $100,000 bond. He is next scheduled to appear in court on Dec. 7, when a judge will determine if there is enough evidence to order him to stand trial.