A Florida woman has told authorities that she had beaten a toddler to death with a tire iron because he wouldn’t get off the sink while brushing his teeth.
Te’Lea Jefferson, 23, has initially denied involvement in the murder of a 3-year-old boy who had been severely injured and declared dead as he arrived at the hospital.
But when her narrative over what happened to the toddler didn’t much the evidence, she confessed to the crime and revealed harrowing details.
As the girlfriend of their father, Jefferson had to take care of the victim and his 6-year-old brother five times a week, and on that tragic day, the toddler climbed to the sink and refused to get down.
Jefferson was quick to react retrieving a tire iron from another room: “His refusal to climb down when told angered her. She walked into the bedroom and retrieved the tire iron from a tool kit,” an arrest report said.
“She advised that she returned to the bathroom and threw the tire iron at him, striking him upon the side of the face.”
She then beat the boy repeatedly as blood sprayed from his head in front of his frightened older brother who had just arrived from school.
The suspect said that she believed the child was already dead when she brought him to the hospital and admitted to abusing him and his sibling several times in the past.
She is being held without bond at the Leon County Jail on murder and aggravated battery charges.
