Parents Charged With Murdering Gary Toddler
GARY, Ind. (STMW) -- By his parents' account, 22-month-old Brandon Dillon was beaten several times a day -- with belts, toys, even an iron, the Post-Tribune is reporting.
Failing to potty train as quickly as his twin sister and "because he gets into things," his mother, Selena Strong, admitted to police she liked her daughter more than Brandon, court records state.
Strong, 26, and the twins' father, Bernard Dillon, 37, were both charged Thursday with murder and Level 1 neglect of a dependent.
Lake County Prosecutor Bernard Carter also filed an additional count seeking life in prison without parole for the couple.
Police arrested Strong and Dillon on Tuesday after seeing the toddler's lifeless body on an air mattress with obvious signs of abuse and a foul-smelling V-shaped head wound. They are being held without bail. They both tested positive for cocaine and marijuana after their arrest, police said.
The autopsy completed on Wednesday revealed multiple internal injuries that Dr. Young Kim estimated had been inflicted "over a period of time that reasonably dated back at least 30 days," the probable cause affidavit states.
Among the traumas were a broken neck and collar bone and bruised kidneys, liver and spleen, the affidavit states.
The boy's parents both told Detective Cpl. Shauna Poirier-Peter they struck Brandon "because of his failure to successfully potty train," the affidavit states.
Strong told the detective "she found Brandon to be more annoying than his twin sister" and said she used a nylon belt or her hand "four or five times a day over the past couple of months," court records state.
The "U-shaped" marks were probably from a metal belt buckle, Strong told Poirier-Peter.
Dillon told police he had beaten Brandon with a belt and said his wife had used pieces of plastic race track from a Hot Wheels toy, the affidavit states. When shown photographs of the boy's injuries, Dillon said some of them may have been caused when the boy was hit with a clothes iron. Dillon said he thought the child had been losing his hair because of the time he spent lying in urine, the affidavit states.
The Department of Family and Child Services took custody of Brandon's twin and younger sibling while investigators were gathering evidence at the family's Horace Mann Homes apartment, police said.
Although neither of the girls showed signs of physical abuse, the twin was suffering from dehydration and malnutrition, which police learned after the girl had been examined at an area hospital, officials said.
The three children had been in foster care previously and returned to their parents earlier this year, police said.
(Source: Sun-Times Media Wire © Chicago Sun-Times 2014. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
