Hallandale Beach man killed his baby days after getting full custody, police say
Police arrested a Hallandale Beach man on charges he killed his 6-month-old son just days after a judge granted him and his fiancée custody of the boy and his 1-year-old sister.
The crime happend on New Year’s Day 2022, according to a city police arrest report, but detectives did not arrest 30-year-old Robert Boesenberg until Friday following a final autopsy report ruled that he killed his son by blunt force trauma to the head.
Boesenberg and his fiancée, whose name was redacted from the arrest report, had a long history of drug abuse and only regained custody of their boy and 1-year-old daughter on Dec. 22, 2021, detectives say.
The parents brought the boy to Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital in Hollywood at 11:30 a.m. Jan. 1, 2022, where doctors’ initial diagnosis was “non-accidental head trauma” likely caused by “violent shaking,” according to the report.
Detectives interviewed Boesenberg later that day and said he told them he got a food delivery around 11 a.m. — and when he went inside to check on his son, the boy was spitting up and changed color. Boesenberg told detectives he called 911, but no one answered, according to the report.
He then called his fiancée, who was working at Hollywood Beach, and her co-worker drove her home, and then the family to the hospital, the report states.
The boy’s mother told detectives that she walked to work at 5:45 a.m., and the baby was fine. She received the call from Boesenberg later that morning and rushed home with her colleague, she told police.
A Florida Department of Children and Family Services investigator told detectives that up until a few days before, the couple did not have custody of their children. They had a significant substance abuse history, and a foster family raised the children for months, the boy since infancy, according to the report.
A court ordered the children removed from the house in May 2020 following failed drug tests and a prior child neglect case, police said.
The parents then entered drug treatment and were eventually given weekly supervised visits, then unsupervised overnight visits, until a judge granted full custody in December 2021, according to the report.
The intensive care doctor who treated the boy told detectives the child arrived at the hospital in cardiac arrest, with a traumatic brain injury, including bleeding on the brain, bleeding of the eyes and a broken left leg, the report states.
He died on Jam. 15, 2025, police said. Iniitial autopsy results state he died from head trauma. But, on Sept. 5 this year, final autopsy results showed the boy had a skull fracture and hemorrhaging of the spinal cord that were the results of repeatedly being hit. The cause of death was ruled homicide, according to the report.
Boesenberg was booked into Broward County jail on charges of aggravated manslaughter of a child and aggravated child abuse. As of Monday, a judge had not set bond. Information on his legal representation was not immediately available.
This story was originally published September 17, 2025 at 9:28 AM.
