A 2-year-old boy is dead, his twin sister is seriously injured and the Roy man who was babysitting them is in custody after police said he admitted to physically and sexually abusing the children.
Police were first contacted by the 36-year-old suspect on Thursday morning, when he reported that the 2-year-old boy he was babysitting was unconscious and not breathing after falling off a couch. When officers arrived, the boy was lying on the front porch of the home and had “several visible injuries” to his face and body.
Inside the house, the boy’s twin sister was sitting on a couch with “several visible injuries” to her face.
The boy was taken to McKay-Dee Hospital in Ogden, where he was pronounced dead. According to a probable cause statement, the 2-year-old had “dozens of significant bruises to his face, head, genitals and the rest of his body.”
The girl was also taken to a hospital, where she is being treated for a brain bleed and extensive bruising “all over her body.” Her condition on Friday morning was not released. There were several other children in the home, but, according to police, they were not injured.
After agreeing to talk with police, the suspect — a friend of the twins’ parents — told investigators that at about 10:30 p.m. on Wednesday, he was “playing a game with the kids” and began to punch the twins “repeatedly” in the back, sides and chest “harder than he should have.”
According to the probable cause statement, he said he also pinched the children “repeatedly all over” their bodies, and picked them up and threw them on a bed “while they cried.” He said he hit them in the head with a toy gun and a mallet made of hard foam before pushing them into a door frame, hitting their heads and causing them to go limp. He added that he knew he was “causing them bodily pain” and that they were “curled up and crying.”
The suspect also told police that he gave both children Tylenol on Wednesday night; gave the boy cough medicine; and gave the girl a children’s sleep aid. At about 7:30 a.m. on Thursday, the boy was “wheezing” so the suspect gave him more cough medicine. And at about 8:30-9 a.m., the boy stopped breathing and the suspect called the police.
Although the suspect told police he performed CPR on the boy, police said “it was later learned” he did not.
The man was booked into the Weber County jail on suspicion of aggravated murder, aggravated child abuse and two counts of aggravated sexual abuse of a child. He is being held without bail.
The Salt Lake Tribune generally does not name defendants unless they have been formally charged with a crime.