The boyfriend of a New Hampshire woman whose 5-year-old son was found dead in an Abington, Massachusetts state park last year has pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the boy’s death and been sentenced to decades in prison.
On Thursday, Joseph Stapf pleaded guilty to manslaughter, second-degree assault, falsifying physical evidence and tampering with a witness. He was sentenced to 20 to 40 years in prison on the manslaughter charge and two to five years on the other charges.
In court, prosecutors outlined disturbing details of systemic abuse Elijah Lewis allegedly suffered while living with his mother, Danielle Dauphinais, and Stapf, along with the couple’s 2-year-old child. A series of texts between Dauphinais and Stapf were read in court in which they talked about abusing Elijah and not feeding him.
At one point, Stapf texted Dauphinais that they needed to feed Elijah and let him sleep so he would look better so they could go out and do things, but Dauphinais responded that she didn’t want to do that, according to prosecutors.
Prosecutors said that in one incident, Stapf picked Elijah up by his arms, yelled at him and threw him on a bed. Elijah struck his head and was injured, prosecutors said, adding that as the abuse went on, Stapf at one point began urging Dauphinais to stop what he referred to as “torture,” but she refused.
In court, prosecutors said Stapf returned home to find Elijah in a tub in the home’s basement, naked and bleeding from an injury to his head, with broken tiles around him. Stapf put a bandage on the boy and took him to bed but didn’t seek medical help, prosecutors said.
Elijah died at some point in the following days, between Sept. 21 and Sept. 24, 2021.
As the details of the abuse were read in court, Stapf kept his head bowed, looking at times over at the prosecutor.
Prosecutors said Dauphinais allegedly told Stapf to get rid of Elijah’s body. The two allegedly put Elijah in the back of a pickup truck and drove to Massachusetts, where they buried the boy in a shallow hole in a state park in Abington.
Prosecutors said the two then abandoned the truck at the Mohegan Sun casino. They were later arrested in New York.
Elijah’s father, Timothy Lewis, called in from Arizona to speak to the court during sentencing.
“You are less than human,” Lewis said. “You could have stepped up to stop this at any point if you had been man enough. You could have brought him back to us at any point.”
Stapf spoke in court before the sentence was handed down.
“I wish I could go back and change everything, and I wish I sought help. Elijah deserved to be loved. He didn’t deserve to go through that,” Stapf said. “I’m so sorry. I truly am. I wish I could take it back. I’m sorry.”
Dauphinais has been indicted on one count of first-degree murder and one count of second-degree murder in her son’s death.
Elijah was first reported missing Oct. 14. His body was found in the Abington woods near Ames Nowell State Park at Chestnut Street on Oct. 23, 2021, during a search that began the previous day.
Investigators searched the woods with cadaver dogs, Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz said at the time.
The discovery of a cellphone dumped at Sandy Pond in Ayer broke the case open, leading investigators to Abington.
The Massachusetts medical examiner found Elijah’s death was a homicide caused by “violence and neglect,” and the boy had enough of the synthetic opioid fentanyl in his system to be fatal, the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office said in a November 2021 news release. The boy had “facial and scalp injuries,” signs of malnourishment and pressure ulcers.
Although the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office issued a news release detailing Elijah’s injuries and cause of death, autopsy reports are not considered public records under Massachusetts law and are largely kept secret from the public.
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