A six-year-old boy has died after being stapled to a wall and shot multiple times with a BB gun during a sickening campaign of abuse, authorities say.
Elaina Rose Jennings, 25, and Daniel John Giacchina, 32, have been charged with murder in connection with the death of Giovanni ‘Chulo’ Jennings, police said.
Giovanny left to sleep on a wooden slat in his mom’s bedroom in a mobile home in Madison Heights, Michigan and was allegedly routinely beaten.
A black curtain was installed on a pen that Giovanny was allegedly kept inside, authorities said.
Officials also say he was “confined, beaten, and bound to the wall using a staple gun.”
Following Jennings’ 911 call reporting her six-year-old son was not breathing, officers from Madison Heights Police Department and emergency medical personnel responded to the Ackels mobile home community off Dequindre Road around 2:34 p.m. on July 30, according to a press release from the Oakland County District Attorney’s Office. The town is located about 13 miles north of Detroit.
Upon arrival, first responders reportedly found young Giovanny unresponsive and with multiple injuries. The boy was rushed by ambulance to Ascension Macomb-Oakland Hospital.
Due to the severity of his condition, Giovanny was transferred to the Children’s Hospital of Michigan Stilson Specialty Center, where he died on July 31.
According to officials, he endured “severe abuse” and “regular” beatings.
Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald said: “After spending hundreds of hours carefully sifting through the evidence in this case, what we found can only be described as horrific.”
She added: “Chulo was confined, beaten, and bound to the wall using a staple gun. He was badly injured, but he was not taken for medical treatment because his mother knew that a medical examination would reveal the abuse.”
During a press conference to announce the charges, McDonald said he was forced to sleep on a mere three feet long and eleven inches wide wooden slat in the pen, experienced frequent beatings and bore scars and contusions spanning from his head to his shins, fingers included.