ZACHARY, LA (WAFB) - An autopsy confirms that an 11-month-old child died after being shot and stabbed.
According to the East Baton Rouge Parish Coroner's Office, Jericho Smith died from multiple gunshot wounds, multiple stab wounds, and blunt force trauma.
“This is just very terrible circumstances and incidents and unfortunately this child lost its life,” said Dr. Beau Clark.
The mother of the child, Iesha Tolbert, spoke to media about her son's death Monday afternoon just hours after the autopsy results were released.
“It’s hard. I’m just, I’m struggling with this issue,” said Tolbert. “I still haven’t come to terms that, you know what I’m saying, that this has really happened.”
Zachary Police Chief David McDavid confirms that Fabian Smith, 33, is being charged with the child's death.
Police responded to the scene on Saturday, October 14 around 1:45 p.m., where they found the child dead at the home.
McDavid added Smith was the only adult in the home at the time and had locked two other young children out of the house. When the children came back in, they found the baby unresponsive and began to scream, "the baby is dead."
Tolbert says she was at work at the time of the killing. She told reporters she still cannot believe the tragic circumstances and that she never saw this murderous side of her husband. “It’s just hard for me right now to take everything in,” Tolbert added. “I could never see him doing anything like this to my child. It just hurts. It really hurts.”
The two children reportedly went to a neighbor for help. That neighbor rushed to the house to check on the unresponsive child, at which point investigators say Smith told the neighbor, "call 911, I messed up."
“My heart and our prayers go out to the family,” McDavid said in a news conference Sunday afternoon.
McDavid also says this case has been especially difficult for his department. “These men and women going to the scene, they have young children,” McDavid said of his first responders. “You go on this scene and see this much senseless brutality to a little child of God, it’s hard to comprehend.”
Smith was booked into the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison. He is charged with first degree murder and second degree cruelty to juveniles.
Tolbert says she is taking the ordeal one day at a time and believes only her faith and her family’s support has given her the strength to face the grim reality.
“I would have loved to see my son grow up and see what he would have become in life. I just can’t… I can’t come to terms right now,” she added. “I’m just asking everyone to keep me in their prayers, keep my family in their prayers, and keep us lifted up.”
Tolbert says a GoFundMe account was set up because the family did not have insurance on the child and the other children in the family are going to need counseling.
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