Finding that infant was poisoned in error

North Carolina's chief medical examiner said this morning that his office erred when it determined that an 11-month-old girl found dead after an apartment fire in Raleigh earlier this year may have been poisoned by her father.

The report made public Monday by the State Medical Examiner's Office said that Noureddine Elamrani, 30, "possibly" killed Dayna Sofia Elamrani-Carranza by force-feeding her alcohol before the fire on Feb. 22 at 305 Roselle Court. After the flames were extinguished, police and firefighters found the father and child, along with Rosa Elena Carranza-Morales, Dayna's mother.

Dr. John Butts, the chief medical examiner, said this morning that a vial containing a sample that belonged to someone else was mistakenly labeled with Dayna's name.

"It was an unusual result when we saw it," Butts said about the high levels of alcohol in the vial. "But it was such an unusual case to begin with."

Police think Elamrani, Carranza-Morales' estranged boyfriend, stabbed the mother of his child before setting the apartment on fire and then shot himself in the forehead.

Emergency workers found the body of the child on her back on a bed. Authorities found Carranza-Morales on the bed with a fatal stab wound to the chest. Elamrani was in the bedroom closet with a gunshot wound to the forehead and a .45 caliber Beretta near his body, according to the autopsy report.

The medical examiner's office is reviewing the case. Butts said he hopes his office will determine a cause of death for Dayna by the end of the week.

The original autopsy report stated that Dayna died before any significant amount of carbon monoxide could have been inhaled. But the medical examiner's office plans to test again for carbon monoxide.

"Maybe that will help explain what happened," Butts said.

Dayna's parents had a history of violence that prompted Carranza-Morales to file a complaint seeking a protective order against Elamrani a little more than two weeks before her death.

In the complaint, Carranza-Morales said Elamrani was the father of the child and that they were not married. An emergency protective order signed Feb. 5 forbade him to have contact with Carranza-Morales or come to the apartment. A second order signed Feb. 13 made an exception that allowed Elamrani to pick up his daughter at the apartment during custody exchanges.