Adoptive mom beats 4-year-old to death, tells older son ‘say nothing,’ Florida cops say

Videos showed a woman throwing her 4-year-old son in a pool with his hands tied and beating him harshly in the year leading up to his death, Florida authorities said.

The 36-year-old woman is now charged with murder, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said May 8.

McClatchy News is not identifying her to protect the identity of her surviving son. Her attorney information is not available in court records.

The woman and her husband, with the help of her sister, adopted the child in April 2023 from Haiti, deputies said in a news release.

While her husband told investigators he didn’t discipline the young child or his 16-year-old brother, she did, deputies said.

On May 1, the young boy came home from school “happy and behaving normally,” according to witnesses and security camera footage.

The brothers were in different rooms for about two hours, until the mom asked her 16-year-old to bring the younger child food, deputies said.

“At that time, he noted that the victim was unable to walk on his own, and struggled to sit up on his own,” deputies said. “(The woman) told the older brother that the victim was ‘faking it’ and to feed him.”

The little boy became unresponsive, and the brother started performing CPR until the boy was taken to the hospital, investigators said.

He was taken to a hospital in Davenport but had to be airlifted to a hospital in Orlando due to the extent of his injuries.

Ultimately, the child had an abdominal bleed that couldn’t be repaired during surgery, and he died, according to deputies.

The injury could only have resulted from a hard hit, Judd said in a news conference.

During an autopsy, the medical examiner reported finding scarring and injuries indicating “ongoing abuse.”

The medical examiner determined the cause of death was assault/blunt force trauma, and the manner of death was homicide.

The teen brother initially told investigators he wasn’t abused, and he said he didn’t see his brother being abused, deputies said. But after he was taken into protective custody, he told investigators his mom threatened to kill him and instructed him to “say nothing so I don’t get in trouble,” deputies said.

In addition to first-degree murder, the woman is charged with aggravated child abuse and tampering with a witness.

Footage obtained from surveillance cameras at the home show the mom beating the child as he lies on the ground in one instance, and in another, throwing him in the pool with his hands bound, deputies said.

“It is beyond my wildest imagination how anyone could abuse a beautiful little fella like this child was abused and neglected,” Judd said.

Davenport is in central Florida, roughly a 35-mile drive southwest from downtown Orlando.

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