A Pennsylvania dad will spend years, if not decades, in prison after admitting to killing his 4-month-old son by shaking him at least eight times. Tyler Sullivan, 31, pled guilty in May to one count of third-degree murder and endangering the welfare of a child, according to a press statement from the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office.
Pennsylvania is one of just three states that still have a third-degree murder statute.
On Tuesday, Bucks County Common Pleas Judge Gary B. Gilman sentenced the father to 15 to 30 years in state prison. “There is no denying that this is a tragedy from start to finish,” Gilman said at the often emotional sentencing session.
On May 24, 2023, shortly before midnight, police officers responded to a complaint about a 4-month-old kid in cardiac arrest at a home on Radcliffe Street in Bristol, a small borough that is part of the greater Philadelphia metropolitan area.
According to the district attorney’s office, the infant had stopped breathing and was cold to the touch when law police arrived.
Police officers performed CPR and rushed the infant to neighboring Lower Bucks Hospital, but it was all for naught. The boy was pronounced deceased one minute after midnight. Sullivan was caught and quickly charged with one count of criminal homicide and two counts of aggravated assault.
According to authorities, a reviewing physician discovered that the boy had contusions, bruises, and abrasions all over his body, which are signs of a mistreated child. Investigators discovered that Sullivan “violently shook” the boy at least twice on the day he died and at least six times in the previous six weeks. In other words, nearly half of the boy’s short life was spent enduring his father’s maltreatment.
“My baby deserved to live a long, happy, wonderful life,” the boy’s mother stated during an impact statement during his sentencing hearing. She stated that the trauma of her son’s death prevented her from ever returning to the apartment the trio previously shared. The mother claimed that she still has nightmares after learning of her child’s death.
The boy’s aunt also talked. She added the baby’s death left a “hole in our hearts that will never be filled.” “We’ll miss him forever.” The since-condemned man, for his part, delivered what prosecutors described as a lengthy and tearful speech in which he revealed “how guilty and ashamed” he was of killing his kid.