A 4-year-old Seattle boy who died after his mother claimed he’d fallen in the bathtub allegedly suffered extreme head trauma before his death, say prosecutors.
The boy’s mom and boyfriend are now charged with second-degree murder in the child’s Dec. 11 death.
In addition to allegedly abusing him, authorities allege in charging documents the couple waited hours before seeking medical help for the child, who the medical examiner identified as Kennan Ford, the Seattle Times reports.
The mother, Cynthia Enyeart, 23, and her boyfriend Junior Asghedom, 20, first claimed the little boy sustained fatal injuries in a fall while exiting the bathtub, according to the charging documents. But the couple allegedly began changing their stories soon afterward, ultimately accusing each other of brutally assaulting the boy.
The charging documents reportedly state that the boy “had stopped eating and his eyes were blackened and swollen shut.”
“However, rather than taking this obviously injured child to the hospital or calling 911 while he was still conscious, they kept KF inside the apartment, leaving him to languish and ultimately die,” the charging documents allege.
When Seattle Fire Department paramedics responded to the family’s home, they found Kennan already dead, and his injuries were reportedly not consistent with a bathtub fall.
While looking into the boy’s death, detectives say, they learned that Child Protective Services had been previously contacted four times about KF’s mother allegedly abusing the boy. He had allegedly experienced “unexplained bruising” in those prior incidents, though she was never charged, according to media accounts of the prosecutors’ claims.
The child’s biological father, Chris Ford, told FOX 13 that he himself had called CPS on numerous instances out of concern for the child’s treatment at his mother’s hands. “I was like, did mommy hit you? He said, ‘yeah’. I called CPS twice. Yeah, they did not care what I had to say,” Ford told the outlet. CPS stated that because of confidentiality laws, it could not comment on the matter.
A former neighbor also told FOX 13 that she believed the child was in clear danger and nothing had been done to stop the alleged abuse. “I feel like KJ should have been taken and given to his father a long time ago,” the former neighbor said. “Everybody has made CPS reports; Everybody has complained, and it was just an ongoing thing. It should have never led to this.”
Prosecutors say an autopsy determined that Kennan died of major blunt force trauma to the head. He also reportedly had bruising all over his body.
It’s not clear whether Enyeart and Asghedom have currently retained lawyers or entered pleas to the charges against them. Their next court date is scheduled for Dec. 22.
