The death of a one year old Bartow County girl was a homicide, that according to the GBI.
Now charges against the mother of Journey Ann Cowert and the mother's boyfriend have been changed.
"The medical examiner is, with a doubt, 100% sure of a homicide," says Bartow County Sheriff Clark Millsap.
The Sheriff tells WSB this was not a sudden act against Cowert, but a slow, agonizing series of abuses, leading to her death.
"This was a systematic, six to seven month period of abuse," Millsap says.
Brandy Ann Boyd, 25, the girl's mother, and her boyfriend, 24 year old Austin Payne, were already in the county jail charged with cruelty to children. Now they are charged with felony murder.
More charges are pending.
Millsap says the autopsy showed that, during her short life, Journey suffered.
“[The medical examiner] found a fractured skull that had healed," says Millsap, "blunt force trauma to the stomach, broken ribs that had healed, and even a broken femur that had healed."
The Sheriff did not say if both suspects were involved in the abuse, but both are charged. He also would not say whether either suspect is cooperating with investigators.
Journey was taken to Cartersville Medical Center two weeks ago with difficulty breathing. She died a few hours later.
Doctors contacted the Bartow County Sheriff's department and the investigation began.
An autopsy later that week showed the girl's death was not accidental and both the girl's mother and her boyfriend were arrested.