GRAND RAPIDS, Michigan — The 25-year-old man accused of beating his girlfriend's 8-month-old son to death told police he had smacked the child against a nightstand, according to witness testimony on Friday.
Jermaine Abron is charged with first degree child abuse and felony murder in the March 4 death of Josiah Guyton. After hearing testimony from a medical examiner, Josiah's mother and a police detective, a Grand Rapids judge said there was enough evidence to send Abron's case to circuit court where it could go to trial.
Kent County Medical Examiner Dr. David Start ruled the death a homicide on March 5 after determining the cause of death to be blunt force head trauma. Start testified that the child's skull was fractured. The autopsy also revealed that two of Josiah's ribs were previously broken.
Jada Guyton, Josiah's mother, testified that she had gone to the store and left Josiah with Abron for about 20 minutes at her Front Avenue apartment. When she got home, she said Abron told her Josiah had fallen in his crib and then gone to sleep, so she went to check on him.
"He was making a noise like he was coming down from a cry," Guyton said. "I never flipped him over, I just checked to see if he was OK. He was sleeping to my knowledge."
Guyton began to sob Friday as she recounted the second time she went to check on Josiah, when she realized he had injuries to his head and was no longer breathing. She said she then called 9-1-1.
Grand Rapids Police Detective David Kadzban testified that during a March 6 interview, Abron "started crying hard" as he said he hit the child's head on a nightstand twice. Investigators then had Abron use a dummy to reenact how he hit the child's head.
"He has the dummy by its thighs and he proceeds to slam the dummy's head on the table twice and he says that's what he did and then he puts the child back into the crib," Kadzban testified.
Kadzban also testified that Abron said he had been upset with Guyton and that Josiah had been crying in the time leading up to his death.
Abron remains lodged at the Kent County jail without bond.
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