JBER Soldier Charged In 28-Day-Old Son’s Shaken-Baby Death; Say's He Is Not A "Bad Guy"

[Sugar Cookie]

A 24-year-old man is accused of shaking his newborn son at his home on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, causing the baby to later die.

Antonius Meyers was initially arrested in April on assault charges and has remained in custody since then. In a statement this week, the Department of Law announced he had been indicted on murder and manslaughter charges.

On April 3, Meyers brought his 28-day-old son to the JBER emergency room because he was unresponsive, according to a criminal complaint written by Anchorage police detective Mindy Mitchell. The baby was transferred to Providence Alaska Medical Center and had continuous seizures overnight, the complaint said.

Doctors discovered the baby had a brain injury and also was bruised on his chest and had injuries to his tongue, according to the complaint.

24-year-old man shook and killed infant, charges say

Antonius Meyers was charged with murder and manslaughter in the shaking death of his newborn son, charges say.

www.adn.com

Meyers’ wife told investigators that he had been given three months of paternal leave to help care for the child, and that Meyers looked after him at night while she cared for him during the day. She said the three of them had been sleeping together on the morning of April 3 when Meyers took the boy downstairs to feed him at about 5 a.m.

“She said when she gave (the child) to Antonius, his eyes were open and he was alert,” police said in the document.

According to the charges, Meyers initially told police that he fed and burped his son, changed his diaper and they fell asleep on a couch. When he woke up shortly after 8 a.m. to feed his child again, he said, the baby was unresponsive but still breathing.

Meyers said he took his child to the base hospital, calling a nurse while he was en route. The nurse told him the child could have Shaken Baby Syndrome, brain injuries caused by forceful shaking.

According to the charging document, Meyers said that he used some pressure on the child’s chest to hold him down while swaddling him and that he occasionally closed the boy’s mouth when he was crying to help calm him down.

In a later interview, the charges say, Meyers admitted to shaking the baby as he cried, in a manner that made the child’s head sway forward until his chin hit his chest. He also said he had never before used violence against his son.

According to the charges, Meyers told police, “I’m not a bad person. I just had one hiccup and I panicked.”

Soon afterward, a doctor told a district attorney that the child’s injuries “were considered non-accidental trauma injuries, consistent with a baby being shaken.”

Providence staff placed the child in a medically induced coma, keeping him on life support. A spokesman for the Department of Law said the infant died May 15, with a grand jury indicting Meyers on murder charges June 19.

JBER soldier charged in infant son's shaken-baby death

Prosecutors say Spc. Antonius Meyers, 24, shook the boy in April when he was less than a month old, leaving him unresponsive until he died in May.

alaskapublic.org

 

[Sugar Cookie]

 

[BuffettGirl]

If you didn't put the baby down and walk away, you're a bad guy. Just clarifying for you...

 

[slovakianrenner]

So , if I were to put him in a wood chipper feet first & then fed his chunks of flesh to hungry hogs , that would mean that I'm not a bad guy either , WOW OK

R.I.P. Little One

 

[cubby]

Why don't you ask your son how he feels about your one little hiccup? Oh that's right, you can't, he's dead.

Wow, the things people say to defend themselves after shaking a baby to death.

 

[Sugar Cookie]

I will assume that she was on maternity leave as well as his paternity leave - did she ever notice he was getting frustrated or was unable to safely care for the child.

If she was upstairs and he was frustrated why did he not just bring the child back to the mother.