A Memphis, Tennessee man convicted for beating his girlfriend’s toddler to death was sentenced Friday to an additional 80 years in prison, according to Shelby County District Attorney Amy Weirich.
According to trial testimony, on July 13, 2015, Hite called first responders to a apartment in Whitehaven and told them he found 2-year-old Deandre Davis floating in an upstairs bathtub and not breathing.
The toddler was taken to Le Bonheur Children’s Medical Center where he died a short time later.
Hite admitted to grabbing Davis by the neck and “popping him several times with a belt on his stomach and legs” before he found him in the bathtub after police and medical personnel noticed cuts and bruising on the child’s body.
A belt Hite was wearing had a studded pattern that matched multiple injuries on the child’s back and legs.
The medical examiner later reported finding head trauma, brain hemorrhaging, internal injuries in the abdomen and scars and wounds in various stages of healing on Davis’ torso, legs and right arm.
A doctor for the defense told the jury Davis died from cancer.
A jury found 29-year-old Marterrius Hite guilty of murder in the perpetration of aggravated child abuse, murder in the perpetration of aggravated child neglect and additional felony counts of aggravated child abuse and aggravated child neglect.
Judge Lee Coffee sentenced Hite to life in prison on the murder convictions back in February.
On Friday, Judge Coffee added 40 year sentences for the abuse and neglect convictions.
According to the DA’s office, the case took years to bring to trial because of extensive medical reports gathered and shared by both sides and additional delays brought on by COVID restrictions that have limited trials in the past two years.
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