TULSA, Okla. (WSVN) — A 24-year-old man in Oklahoma faces murder charges after police said he brutally beat his girlfriend’s toddler because the baby wouldn’t go to sleep.
Fox News reports that Zachary Collins was originally arrested Saturday for child abuse and neglect, but those charges were later upgraded to child abuse murder after the 21-month-old child died.
Tulsa Police said Collins was babysitting his girlfriend’s three children, but became enraged when the little boy wouldn’t go to sleep. That’s when police said he threw the boy into furniture, slamming the baby’s head into the wall until he was unconscious and quiet.
“At that point he punched the child in the stomach and threw him against the wall so hard that there was a hole,” Officer Jeanne Mackenzie told Fox 23.
The child’s mother called police when she returned home. As officers interviewed Collins, he reportedly tried to blame the older child, saying the 3-year-old had pushed the toddler off of the bed.
Investigators said the boy’s injuries were too severe for officers to believe the story, and Collins later confessed to the brutal beating.
According to Fox 23, Collins has an ongoing domestic assault case against him, and is on a suspended sentence involving several drug-related convictions.
Police told the station that it is unclear if anyone else will face charges in the boy’s death, saying prosecutors have charged mothers in the past for leaving their children with violent boyfriends.
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