Dad ‘choked baby son to death for not listening to him’
A dad allegedly strangled his one-year-old son for minutes until he died for not listening to what he said.
Nathaniel Lee Edwards, 24, is accused of suffocating his son with both hands and then leaving him on his bed, where his mother found him unresponsive after getting off work.
Cops responded to reports of a child in cardiac arrest at a home in Front Royal, Virginia, and found Warren County Fire & Rescue already working to rush the child to a hospital, according to the Front Royal Police Department.
Despite life-saving measures, the child was pronounced dead at Warren Memorial Hospital.
The mother said she put Edmonds in charge but that he was ‘nowhere to be found’ when she finished work and found the boy, states an arrest affidavit obtained by the Northern Virginia Daily.
Cops tracked Edwards down using a phone locator and arrested him as he was walking along US 522 North by Fairground Road.
In an interview with authorities, Edwards confessed that he strangled his son ‘using both of his hands for minutes because the child was not listening and he couldn’t take it anymore’, states the affidavit.
The boy was foaming at the mouth, Edwards said.
Edwards has been charged with second-degree murder and is being held without bail at Rappahannock-Shenandoah-Warren Regional Jail in connection with the September 18 crime.
He appeared in the Warren County Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court the next day and his next hearing has been scheduled for December 19.
The boy’s identity has not been released.
‘Due to the ongoing and sensitive nature of the case, no further details will be released at this time,’ stated the police department.
Front Royal is about 70 miles west of Washington, DC.
Anyone with information on the case is urged to contact the police department.
The boy was killed days before a Texas death row inmate was executed by lethal injection for stamping and strangling his three-month-old son to death in 2008.
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