Dad Who Allegedly Beat 5-Year-Old Son To Death, Waited For 13 Minutes To Call For Help

Police in Henderson, Nevada, said that the father who allegedly beat his five-year-old son to death, waited 13 minutes to call for help.

Last Wednesday, police were called to a home in the city to respond to a report of a 5-year-old boy “who was unconscious and not breathing," reported New York Daily News. Police said that arriving responders tried resuscitative measures, but the boy was "beyond help and was pronounced deceased on scene.”

According to a police statement, the boy's father, Gerald Oglesby, was arrested on one count of open murder. An arrest report revealed that the 33-year-old admitted to police that he had whipped the child with an electrical cord. He also punched the boy in the stomach for “back-talking him” about going to bed. An investigator wrote that Oglesby explained as soon as he his his son in the abdomen, "he knew he struck him too hard." After the beating, the boy started acting strange. He was unable to walk normally. Then he threw up and lay facedown on the couch, but his dad did not call police.

Police said that Oglesby lay down next to his child and was “rubbing his body” to comfort him, but the child remained unresponsive. Oglesby admitted that he was afraid of what would happen if he called for help, so he started doing CPR on his boy and texted the child’s mother and his sister. He said that he didn't want to call cops for help because he was worried about losing custody of his child, reported CNN. He also felt that officers "would not understand his method of discipline."

He made a brief court appearance on Monday morning in Henderson where he faced Henderson Justice of the Peace, David Gibson Sr., reported Las Vegas Review-Journal. Gibson Sr. assigned the Clark County public defender’s office to represent Oglesby, who was initially ordered held without bail. Bail was not addressed during his court appearance.

His son died from multiple blunt force trauma, the Clark County coroner’s office said, and the death was ruled a homicide. May 2 has been fixed as the date for Oglesby’s next court appearance.