Stepfather held in 17MO’s death

Maliki Wilburn brought smiles to the faces of everybody around him.

Family and friends gathered at a vigil at Crowley Park in downtown Spokane on Monday night to pay respects to the 17-month-old who was pronounced medically dead earlier in the day after suffering serious head trauma on Friday in Coeur d’Alene.

“That kid brought joy to everybody,” said Lane Fletcher, a friend of Antonio Wilburn and Dacia Cheyney, Maliki’s parents. “He was always a cheerful kid. If I was in the worst mood ever, he’d still make me happy.”

Fletcher, of Sandpoint, was among about 25 friends in a dozen or so vehicles who cruised from the Love’s Truck Stop in Post Falls to the vigil in Spokane.

Cheyney wrote a Facebook status Monday morning: “Maliki will not be coming home. Everybody needs to come and say goodbye to him today.”

At 3:30 p.m. she posted again: “Our precious baby boy has gone. He has been pronounced medically dead”/Bethany Blitz, Coeur d’Alene Press. More here.