A Florida woman will spend the rest of her life in prison after beating her girlfriend’s 3-year-old son to death with a tire iron and then waiting more than three hours to transport him to the hospital after he had most likely died.
Te’Lea Jefferson, 28, pleaded no contest to first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse on Tuesday in the 2020 death of her girlfriend’s son, Miguel, according to local media. The judge gave her a life sentence for murder and 30 years for child abuse.
A probable cause arrest affidavit stated that Jefferson drove the boy to the hospital around 7 p.m. on October 19, 2020. He was unresponsive, with a body temperature of only 88 degrees, and had “severe trauma” to his face and head. Minutes after his arrival, doctors pronounced him dead. The hospital staff quickly called the Tallahassee Police Department.
Jefferson, who lived with her girlfriend, Miguel, and their 6-year-old sibling, claimed the boy was brushing his teeth on the sink when he fell and hit the toilet, shattering the porcelain, according to the affidavit.
Cops noticed at least six deep lacerations on his head and face, as well as a nearly severed finger. Investigators concluded that the injuries were not consistent with a fall, as Jefferson claimed. Cops also noticed Miguel had injuries all over his body that were healing in various stages.
Post-Miranda, Jefferson told detectives she had been watching Miguel all day while his mother was at work and his sibling was in school. The sibling arrived home from school around 3:15 p.m. About 20 minutes later, she instructed Miguel to brush his teeth.
She entered the bathroom and saw him standing at the sink. Jefferson claimed she told him to get down and briefly exited the bathroom. That’s when she claimed he fell and hit the toilet. She insisted that the lacerations had been caused by the shattered toilet.
But cops confronted her about her timeline. If she had taken Miguel to the hospital immediately after his injuries, she would have arrived around 4 p.m., not 7 p.m. Investigators also informed her that the boy’s injuries were not consistent with a fall. According to the affidavit, she then admitted to hitting him with a tire iron.
She told cops she became enraged when the boy refused to climb down from the sink. Jefferson grabbed a tire iron from his tool kit and threw it at him, striking him in the side of the face. It also hit the toilet, which caused it to shatter, according to the affidavit. She said she hit the boy three or four times.
“She recalled seeing blood spray from [Miguel’s] wounds as she struck him,” the police noted.
Jefferson also admitted that the boy was “likely deceased” when she took him to the hospital.
Jefferson was arrested, and she has been in jail since then. Prior to the plea deal, prosecutors had sought the death penalty.
Authorities determined that Miguel and his sibling had previously been abused. The sibling was taken into custody by the Department of Children and Families.