An Atlanta woman has pleaded guilty to fatally beating a 3-year-old boy with a baseball bat for eating a cupcake, according to reports.
LaShirley Morris pleaded guilty on Dec. 11 in the death of KeJuan Mason, who was found badly battered in a “roach-infested” southwest Atlanta home with bruises throughout his body in October 2017, WXIA reports.
Morris and her sister, Glenndria Morris — the boy’s legal guardian at the time of the slaying — insisted to officers that he choked on a cupcake. But an autopsy found that the child had died from blunt force trauma — with bruises on his legs, back, chest, buttocks, arm and head, the station reports.
“She told me out of her mouth before I got the autopsy back that he had been beaten about the cupcake,” KeJuan’s grandmother, Xavier Upshaw, said during a 2018 bond hearing for Glenndria Morris. “I have five grandbabies. I had six. It is unfair. He was 3 years old. What can a baby do, 3 years old, to make you beat him to death?
The boy succumbed to his injuries at a hospital on Oct. 21, 2017, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
In addition to murder, LaShirley Morris pleaded guilty to charges of aggravated assault and cruelty to children in KeJuan’s death. She was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole, WXIA reports.
Prosecutors announced Morris’ non-negotiated plea deal Friday, the station reports.
The case against Glenndria Morris — who was charged for not stopping the fatal beating — is still pending. She’s facing charges of murder, aggravated assault and cruelty to children in KeJuan’s death, the Journal-Constitution reports.
In 2017, KeJuan and three of his siblings were placed in the care of the Georgia Division of Family & Children Services after their mother was busted on a reckless conduct charge. The boy’s mother, Geraldine Mason, allegedly left the youngsters home alone and abused them, according to department records cited by the newspaper.
Mason was later reunited with one of her children when she was released from custody in April 2017 — at which point she also requested temporary guardianship for KeJuan and his twin brother. Mason suggested that Glenndria Morris, the boy’s godmother, serve as his guardian, the newspaper reports.