Heartbreaking footage shows Finley Boden giggling before he was beaten to death by his parents on Christmas Day
HEARTBREAKING footage shows Finley Boden giggling before he was beaten to death by his parents on Christmas Day.
Just eight-months-old in the video, baby Finley was full of laughter as his killer parents played with him.
The youngster is tucked up in bed as he’s tickled with a teddy exactly two months before his “savage and brutal” murder.
Finley tragically died at the hands of dad Stephen Boden, 30, and mum Shannon Marsden, 22, just 39 days after he was placed back into their care.
Another clip released by cops shows Finley sitting up in bed all smiles as he plays with his dummy.
The tot suffered an “appalling” catalogue of injuries including 71 bruises and two burn marks.
Finley also had 57 fractures to his tiny body that had been inflicted before he collapsed at his home in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, at 10 months old.
In the hours leading up to his death Marsden can be seen pushing Finley around Chesterfield market in his buggy just before 2.30pm.
She then returns home with the youngster as further footage shows Finley with his dad in Tesco at 7.16pm.
Shocking pictures also showed the squalid home Finley was forced to live in.
The baby slept on a vomit and faeces-stained cot mattress cover in his cot, which had been squashed against his parents’ bed.
Mouldy milk bottles and plates littered the floor in the cramped bedroom and his Calpol medicine had been carelessly placed next to cigarette ends and pouches of tobacco.
The bathroom was also full of junk with no space to use the sink or bath and there were yellow stains on the floor.
During a harrowing trial, jurors were told Finley had been placed into care shortly after he was born.
But after being returned to his parents during lockdown in 2020, he was subjected to “repeated acts of severe violence”.
On November 19, 2020 – the day he came home – similar chilling internet searches were also carried out.
Among Finley’s horrific injuries were burns caused by a “hot, flat surface” and another possibly from a cigarette lighter.
His pelvis had also been broken in two places – possibly after he was kicked or stamped on – and the inside of his mouth was torn.
He later developed pneumonia and sepsis as his drug-user parents worked together to hide his injuries from social services.
Just days before Finley’s death, messages were sent on their shared mobile phone reading: “Little one f***ing kept me up all night.
“I want to bounce him off the walls. Haha.”
Another text read: “F***ing been up all night, little one has been ill as f**k.”
Although it was not clear who sent the texts, Boden did message his drug dealer saying: “Just kid and missus doing my nut, and need a smoke bad. Haha.”
On Christmas Day 2020, paramedics scrambled to the home found Marsden “upset and screaming” as Boden attempted to resuscitate their stricken son.
Finley was rushed to hospital but tragically he couldn’t be saved and was declared dead shortly after.
But callous Marsden and Boden showed no remorse over their son’s death and even spoke about Christmas dinner in the police car and plans to sell Finley’s pram.
The following day, they were heard “laughing and joking” at a relative’s house.
Despite their bail conditions stating they were barred from making contact, the couple continued having a sexual relationship.
They only split up when they were charged with murder and then sought to blame each other for Finley’s death.
Shameless Boden even tried pinning the 130 injuries on “rocking Finley too hard”.
But jurors saw through their lies after being told he and Marsden to this day remain “in it together”.
Boden, of Barrow Hill, Chesterfield, and Marsden, of no fixed address, denied murder, two counts of child cruelty, and two charges of causing or allowing the death of a child.
The pair will be sentenced at a later date.
