On April 17, 2012, 22-year-old Chekayla Dampier placed her infant son, Emilio Jesus Bautista, under the hot water (147°) because he wouldn’t stop crying. Afterward, Chekayla waited hours to take her son to the hospital.
She then claimed that when she dried the baby, his skin was peeling and his skin was bubbling. Rushing her baby to Morton Plant North Bay Hospital, the child’s injuries were so severe that he was helicoptered to Tampa General Pediatric Burn Unit.
The infant’s burns on his chest caused his left nipple to pull off when his shirt was removed.
At first Chekayla blamed the attack on others at her home.
However she changed her tune and confessed to deputies that Emilio had been “crying for hours” and admitted to “placing him in an infant wash tub and running hot water over him for two or three minutes.” She apparently said she placed her child’s head “directly under the spout” and he was “crying during the entire incident.”
Chekayla was first charged with aggravated child abuse causing great bodily harm. The charge was raised to first-degree murder after Emilio died on April 28, 2012 two months and eight days after his birth on February 20, 2012.
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The plea deal was made just before the trial was about to start and after a witness died. The witness who had been expected to help the defense’s argument that the baby’s death was an accident died overnight. Ana Hernandez, 53, who had flown in from Perth Amboy, N.J., was found dead in her hotel’s swimming pool around 2 a.m. Tuesday, prosecutors said. No details about her death were released.
Defense attorneys initially asked Handsel to declare a mistrial to give them time to regroup. They had not planned to put Dampier on the witness stand to bolster their theory that the baby’s death was an accident, said Assistant Public Defender Dean Livermore, and needed to rethink their strategy. But after a short break, both sides reach a plea deal.
Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Court Judge Mary Handsel sentenced Chekayla to 50 years in state prison on April 27, 2016.
Her great aunt, Elethea Dampier, raised Chekayla Dampier and said she had hoped her niece would only serve 15 to 20 years in prison.
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