Stepdad likely killed Tarrant boy prosecutors theorize was smothered or drowned, judge rules
A man who struck his stepson with a belt was also likely responsible for the boy’s asphyxia death under nebulous circumstances 11 months later when he was 6 years old, a state district judge in Tarrant County concluded on Thursday.
Judge Ruben Gonzalez revoked Brandon Hale’s probation punishment in connection with the belt injury of Joseph King and sentenced him to 10 years in prison. Joseph, who was known as Jojo, died in February 2020 on his sixth day at a hospital.
A forensic pathologist testified at an earlier evidentiary hearing that there are two methods that are more likely to have caused Joseph’s asphyxia inside the Grand Prairie apartment where he lived than Hale’s account the the boy suffocated inside a cedar chest.
Joseph, the pathologist testified, may have been smothered by a pillow, towel, or by being placed facedown on a bed, or he may have been drowned, perhaps, a sheriff’s office deputy suggested, in a toilet bowl.
In connection with the belt injury, which created welts across the boy’s backside and thighs, Hale in October 2019 pleaded guilty to intentionally causing injury to a child and was placed on deferred adjudication probation for four years.
Gonzalez, who presides in the 432nd District Court, five months ago held the evidentiary hearing to resolve a Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office petition to revoke Hale’s probation because prosecutors alleged he was guilty of causing serious bodily injury to a child in Joseph’s death.
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The judge on Thursday noted the distressing nature of the case.
“This is heartbreaking,” Gonzalez said.
The precise circumstances of Joseph’s death are in radical dispute.
“Since Hale was the only person in the house when the asphyxia took place, the preponderance of the evidence is that Hale caused Joseph’s serious bodily injury,” Assistant District Attorney Bill Vassar wrote in a brief.
Hale, 37, in July testified that he found Joseph inside a cedar chest that was used as a toy box in the boy’s bedroom. He said he opened its lid and found Joseph, who was not breathing, curled inside.
Joseph’s mother, Jessica Hale, testified at the evidentiary hearing that she never doubted her husband’s account and does not believe he harmed Joseph in February 2020. Jessica Hale was also called as a defense witness on Thursday. After testifying and as she returned to her seat in the gallery, Jessica Hale spoke to Joseph’s father, Joseph King Sr., who was also in the gallery.
“God knows,” she said.
The aside drew an admonishment from Gonzalez.
The cause of Joseph’s death was hypoxic encephalopathy, the pathologist determined. Its manner was classified as undetermined.
The first Grand Prairie police officer who investigated the death closed the case because he did not have enough evidence to pursue an arrest warrant, defense attorney David Scoggins wrote in a brief.
Joseph King Sr., a law enforcement officer in Georgia, contacted the Grand Prairie Police Department and requested the case be reopened. King filed a formal Internal Affairs complaint against the first officer who investigated the death, alleging he was derelict in his duty, Scoggins wrote.
“The subsequent reopening of the investigation by threats against law enforcement produced a biased investigation by [a detective], who manipulated the facts in an attempt to support a biased result to support the state’s narrative and theory of the case,” Scoggins wrote. “The state’s theory of the case is not supported by credible evidence.
“Sadly, sometimes in life, misadventures and accidents happen to children,” Scoggins wrote. “Every child’s death cannot be twisted into a purported crime.”
