Mom wakes up and finds baby cold to touch, FL cops say. Dad charged with murder
A dad is accused of killing his 2-month-old son while putting him to bed, leaving the baby’s mom to find the child dead in the morning, Florida authorities said.
Donovan Winter, 26, is now charged with felony murder and aggravated child abuse, the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office announced June 17.
Winter was arrested following the child’s death more than four years ago. The boy died of “multiple blunt-impact head injuries” at a Merritt Island apartment June 1, 2021, deputies wrote in an arrest affidavit.
Text messages revealed Winter and the baby’s mom had been struggling with the child’s “inconsolable” crying leading up to the baby’s death, investigators said.
That night, the mom was visiting friends with the baby and got home at around 1 a.m., then Winter arrived about 15 minutes later, and they all entered the apartment, deputies said. At around that time, a photo showed the baby “healthy, alert and aware” with no injuries, according to the affidavit.
The mom recalled that she fed the 2-month-old and went to take a long shower, but deputies said the couple’s stories were inconsistent from that point on, as investigators worked to figure out who had been with the child the last time he was seen alive.
Ultimately, investigators said Winter was the one to put the child to bed, although he never said how the child received his fatal injuries. He told deputies the baby was “over-tired and fussy” as he was struggling to get the child down that night, and the mom never came out to help him, according to the affidavit.
He said he may have been a little rough with the baby while trying to calm him, but when he put the baby face-down with a pacifier, the child stopped crying, deputies said.
The mom recounted that after taking her long shower, she didn’t check on the child before climbing into bed with Winter, and the couple slept through the night without checking on the baby for about six hours, deputies said.
Winter said he woke up to the mom’s screaming, according to investigators.
They called 911 at around 8:40 a.m., and the mom told deputies her son had turned himself over during the night and died, and she found him in the morning stiff and cold to the touch, deputies said.
Investigators noted rigor mortis had set in by the time they arrived, suggesting the baby had been dead for hours, according to the report. But the baby didn’t have any obvious injuries indicating what had happened, deputies said.
A spokesperson for the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office told McClatchy News the baby didn’t have injuries indicating a pattern of abuse. The fatal injury came from that night, deputies said.
After the four-year investigation, deputies re-interviewed the couple, who had since split up, and determined Winter was the last one to care for the baby leading up to his death, according to the sheriff’s office.
Records show Winter was booked on a charge of third-degree murder without premeditation during the commission of another felony.
Merritt Island is on Florida’s Space Coast, about a 60-mile drive southeast from Orlando.