Couple who 'beat 4-year-old child to death for spilling cereal' charged with murder
Tahjir Smith dies from 'multiple blunt injuries, thermal injuries and shock'
A couple who allegedly beat a four-year-old boy to death for spilling his cereal, have been charged with his "senseless" murder.
Police accused the boy’s mother, Lisa Smith, 19, and her boyfriend Keiff King, 26, of repeatedly hitting Tahjir Smith in the head and torso at their home in Abington, Pennsylvania.
The pair admitted they used their hands to give Tahjir a “butt whooping”, investigators said.
The boy was found “limp and unresponsive" by police and paramedics when they arrived at the property.
He was later pronounced dead at Abington Jefferson Health Hospital.
The final autopsy report showed that the toddler died “from multiple blunt injuries, thermal injuries and shock,” and concluded that the cause of death was “homicide.”
Calling it a “senseless killing”, Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele said:“The forensic pathologist’s determination that Tahjir’s death was homicide shows what detectives found in our investigation—that this was a violent, sustained beating of a 4-year-old that caused his death.
“And it was a beating at the hands of the mother’s boyfriend and the mother, the very person entrusted to care for the boy.”
The have been charged with first-degree murder and will appear in court on 18 April.