An autopsy in the death of 1-year-old Hoss Wayne Benham shows the child suffered 89 injuries and has Cullman County’s district attorney calling for capital murder charges against the mother and boyfriend.
District Attorney Wilson Blaylock said today he has reviewed the autopsy report for two days with his staff and will seek the new charges when a grand jury convenes on the week of Oct. 6. The child’s mother, Crystial Ballenger, 23, and her boyfriend, Jeffrey Hugh Brown, 37, are being held in the Cullman County Detention Center on charges of aggravated child abuse.
“It’s really unbelievable and just hard to read what happened to this infant child. His last 36 hours were spent in horror and pain,” Blaylock said. “With the victim being under 14 and the findings of this autopsy, we are moving forward with the capital murder charges on both Ballenger and Brown. It takes you aback to think that anyone could cause these types of injuries to a child.”
Blaylock said the autopsy details the 89 injuries to the child’s body.
Among the findings of the autopsy, the child suffered 38 injuries to the head and neck from blunt-force trauma; four injuries each to the left and right eyes; 19 to the legs and arms; six to the torso; seven to the genitalia and anus; seven burns to the right foot and four burns to the left foot.
The child died March 11, 2014, on his first birthday. Ballenger and Brown were arrested a few days after the death and have remained incarcerated since that time.
Capital murder carries a penalty of life in prison without parole or death.
Benham was pronounced dead at Cullman Regional Medical Center after Ballenger and Brown took the child to the hospital, where multiple injuries were discovered.