Suspect pleads innocent in death of two year old

This story hits especially close to home because this happened in the same apartment complex that I moved out of a few months ago.

The 26 year old male pleads innocent in the charges of second degree murder.

The suspect, who was engaged to the child’s mother but was not his biological father, has been in jail since Monday, the day the boy was rushed to the local hospital and then the Children’s Hospital with brain injuries that would prove fatal. First he was diagnosed as being brain dead, the next day he died.

County prosecutors are pursuing “aggravating circumstances” on top for the murder charge, which would open the door for a sentence beyond the standard sentencing range. The aggravating circumstances are that the alleged beating was a violation of a position of trust, deliberate cruelty, involved a vulnerable victim and was an act of domestic violence.

The charge would carry a standard sentencing range of 123 to 220 months — or between 10 and 18 years — in prison. If found guilty, the aggravating circumstances would allow a judge or jury to choose a sentence beyond 18 years. The statutory maximum is life in prison.

According to the County Sheriff’s Office, the suspect was looking after five children Monday at the Apartment unit he shared with the boy’s mother. Sheriff’s deputies and case workers form Child Protective Services took the remaining four children into protective custody and placed them in temporary foster homes Monday night, according to police.

Three of the children are the suspect’s from a prior relationship and two (including the deceased boy) were his girlfriend’s from a prior relationship, according to the Sheriff’s Office. All are under five years old.

According to court documents, he allegedly told police he caught the boy playing with items on a dresser before throwing him on a bed and bouncing him into the mattress “like a basketball” by thrusting the child’s abdomen five to six times. The last was harder and caused the boy to become stiff and unresponsive, documents said.

Detectives also believe the boy fell from a second-story window about a week and a half earlier, though when the mother took the child to the emergency room she reported it as a fall from playground equipment, reports said.

Doctors told detectives that the earlier fall from the window was not the cause of the brain trauma, because the injuries he suffered Monday would have left him unconscious and nonfunctioning for those 10 days.

Detectives do not anticipate more arrests at this point. The Sheriff’s Office said that when the investigation is complete the case file will be given to prosecutors, who will decide whether any other people will be charged.

I believe that he mother was covering up the abuse. I know for a fact that he fell out of the window which is pretty high up. The day after the boy died I was at the apartment complex for a birthday party, and the unit was dark and quiet. I’m sure the mother is both mourning the death of her son and for losing her other child. But I think that there should be an investigation on her.

Either way, this poor boys life ended far too early.