A 31-year-old man was charged with murder in the death of his girlfriend’s 15-month-old son, who died from blunt force trauma to the abdomen.
Dedric Lamar Greer was charged with second-degree murder for punching the toddler, Sayvon Jordan, in the abdomen, causing fatal injuries.
On Saturday morning, Greer and his girlfriend took Sayvon to the hospital because he appeared “stiff” and was unresponsive, prosecutors said. Doctors determined the boy had been dead for some time and notified police.
The night before, prosecutors said, the boy’s mother left Greer alone with Sayvon for an hour. When she returned, the boy was sick, listless and had been throwing up.
Greer told detectives that Sayvon had choked on a rock and he performed the Heimlich maneuver to make him spit up the rock. He claimed he got the rock out of Sayvon’s mouth but continued to give him the Heimlich maneuver several more times.
Prosecutors said the children that lived in the home told detectives they saw Greer grab Sayvon by the neck, throw him on the bed and say, “Stupid baby, go to sleep!” They also said Greer pushed his fists into the boy’s stomach, and hit him in the head with a flat iron.
The medical examiner also found scars of varying age on Sayvon's body and, according to prosecutors, the medical examiner believes the same abdominal trauma had been occurring for weeks.
Mom's boyfriend charged with murder in punching death of Tacoma toddler
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Rigor mortis had set in by the time anyone tried to help 15-month-old Sayvon Jordan Jr. after his mother’s then-boyfriend beat him to death.
That “callous neglect after the fact” and the brutality of the death were things Pierce County Superior Court Judge Stanley Rumbaugh considered Thursday as he weighed a sentence for the toddler’s killer.
He settled on 21 years, two months in prison for 31-year-old Dedric Greer. That was the high end of Greer’s sentencing range for second-degree murder, to which he pleaded guilty earlier this year.
In an attempt to withdraw his guilty plea before sentencing, Greer told Rumbaugh, “It didn’t go down like that. … I just can’t get up there and agree to it, man.”
Rumbaugh said no, and Greer’s attorney, Edward DeCosta, told the court later that Greer had thought better of trying to back out of the plea.
“He never intended for this child to die,” DeCosta said. “He used incredibly poor judgment, and he recognizes that.”
Greer briefly addressed the court, to say: “I’m sorry. I never meant for this to happen.”
DeCosta asked the judge to show the same mercy in sentencing that the attorney said Greer should have shown Sayvon, but Rumbaugh didn’t.
“I just in good conscience cannot,” he told Greer. “... What a waste. Not just of your life, but of the child’s life as well. It’s inexplicable.”
Tacoma man sentenced to 21 years in fatal beating of girlfriend’s toddler
Rigor mortis had set in by the time anyone tried to help 15-month-old Sayvon Jordan Jr. after his mother’s then-boyfriend beat him to death.
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He appealed his sentence and while his conviction was upheld he was granted a re-sentencing
State Of Washington v. Dedric Lamar Greer – CourtListener.com
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