Norfolk man pleads guilty to fatally beating 4-year-old when he was 14
A Norfolk teen who admitted to fatally beating a 4-year-old boy living in the same home pleaded guilty Friday to voluntary manslaughter as part of a deal reached with prosecutors.
The agreement calls for Robert “Robbie” Bolsinger-Hartshorn, 18, to remain in a juvenile detention facility until he’s 21, then serve five years of supervised probation after his release. He also must continue to receive counseling and therapy while incarcerated and after he’s set free.
Bolsinger was 14 when he killed Larkin Carr in November 2018. He’s been held in a juvenile detention facility since his arrest shortly after the boy died from a blow to his abdomen.
Bolsinger initially was charged with second-degree murder, but prosecutors agreed to allow him to plead to the lesser charge because they don’t believe he intended to kill Larkin, Senior Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Gordon Ufkes said during Friday’s hearing.
“We wrenched with this case for quite some time,” Ufkes told Circuit Judge Daniel Lannetti. “But honestly looking at it, it’s manslaughter all day long. It’s an unintentional killing.”
The teen’s mother was in a relationship with Larkin’s father, Hank Larkin Smith, when the boy was killed. Bolsinger and his mother, Catherine Seals, were living with Smith and his two young sons at a home in the Roland Park neighborhood at the time.
Smith and Seals also were charged in the case. While prosecutors didn’t accuse either of beating Larkin, they contended the two also were responsible for his death because they failed to protect him from Bolsinger, who’d beaten Larkin on multiple occasions.
Seals pleaded guilty in 2019 to felony homicide and three child abuse and neglect charges. She’s due to be sentenced next month. A jury found Smith guilty of the same charges at the end of a trial last year, and he was later sentenced to 21 years in prison.
Larkin and his 3-year-old brother had gone to live with their father after having been taken away from their mother by Child Protective Services. They were removed from her care because of her drug abuse and the poor living conditions in her home, according to testimony at Smith’s trial.
Paramedics found Larkin lying unresponsive on a sofa after being called to his father’s home on Nov. 9, 2018. The boy had no pulse and wasn’t breathing. His body was covered in bruises. He was pronounced dead shortly after arriving at Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters in Norfolk.
Larkin and his brother had been left with Bolsinger that afternoon while Seals and Smith drove Seals’ daughter to Virginia Beach. The couple was returning home when Bolsinger called to tell them Larkin was unresponsive. Seals then called 911.
Investigators said Bolsinger admitted to punching Larkin numerous times and hitting him in the stomach with a chair shortly before he died. Seals and Smith told police they didn’t know he’d been harming the child and also didn’t believe he was capable of such violence.
Bolsinger also was abused as a child, mostly by his mother’s boyfriends, defense attorney Tiffany Crawford said.
Crawford said the teen has turned his life around since being incarcerated. He’s graduated from the juvenile detention facility’s high school program, was a speaker at the ceremony, and has obtained numerous training certificates. He’s had no infractions while being held and received lots of praise in letters written to the judge by multiple employees of the detention center.
“It’s the first time he’s had any stability in his life,” Crawford said of his time in detention. “I wholeheartedly believe Robbie has been rehabilitated.”
Jane Harper, 757-222-5097, jane.harper@pilotonline.com
