EDINBURG, Texas — A Texas border teen is facing capital murder charges in connection with the death of his own 6-month-old baby boy.
On Thursday evening, investigators with the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office arrested the 16-year-old male teenager and took him to a juvenile detention center, information provided to Breitbart Texas by authorities revealed.
Since the teenager is not an adult, in Texas, his identifying information is not public record. His name, photograph and other information only becomes public if prosecutors move to charge him as an adult and a judge grants a certification hearing.
According to Hidalgo County Sheriff’s spokesman J.P. Rodriguez, on February 12, deputies responded to a call of an unresponsive child at a house on Travis Neal Drive in the rural area near the city of Palmview. Emergency crews arrived to the house before the deputies and rushed the baby a local hospital.
Deputies and sheriff’s investigators went to the hospital where they met with the 16-year-old father of the child. The teenager said that he had been caring for the baby when he “became sick” and unresponsive. The teen claimed that he tried to do CPR on the child while emergency crews were on the way.
Doctors moved the baby to another hospital where he continued to be in life support until he passed away on February 15.
A forensic pathologist carried out a routine autopsy on the baby and ruled that the cause of death had been blunt force trauma that caused various fractures to the baby’s head.
Following the autopsy ruling, investigators spoke with various witnesses and gathered additional evidence that allowed them to charge the teenager with capital murder. According to Texas Penal Code 19.03, person can be charged with capital murder if the victim is a child.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award winning journalist with Breitbart Texas you can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook.
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