01.02.10
A 24-year-old Thriving Valley man whose infant son died in his care received a penitentiary sentence of more than five years on Monday.
Willie Ervin Franklin III declined to view during the 10-minute sentencing hearing before Hennepin County Evaluate Gary Larson. He pleaded guilty last week to stand-in-degree manslaughter.
At his plea hearing last week, a woebegone-looking Franklin admitted throwing a indulge bottle at Willie Franklin IV, mildly bruising him, in August last year. Then he put the toddler face down on a pillow and covered him with a blanket later fixed to weigh 4 pounds.
Franklin, who was alone with the boy, then went into another leeway of his apartment, smoked marijuana, called an X-rated tete- line and turned up the music so he couldn't discover his son crying. He admitted being in the other room for 30 minutes. When he returned, the tot wasn't breathing. Franklin called police and tried to resuscitate the infant, he testified.
In a prior court session, the medical examiner said he was not able to determine a cause of the child's death. An autopsy revealed no internal injuries, but found a bump on his forehead and a cut shaped like a fingernail not far away from his nose, and a single tiny hemorrhage in each eye accordant with suffocation.
Source: Minneapolis Star Tribune