5-Year-Old Indiana Boy Found Dead With Bite Marks All Over Body, Mother's Boyfriend Charged

An Indian man was charged with murder in connection with the death of his girlfriend’s 5-year-old son.

According to the court documents, police responded to a home Thursday (April 16) and found the boy unresponsive. He was pronounced dead at the scene. The accused, identified as 26-year-old Michael J. Tunstall, told the responding officers that the victim woke from sleep vomiting. He then placed the child in the bathtub where he became unconscious.

The investigators, however, noticed bruising and bite marks on the victim’s body. When questioned about the same, the accused said he had played a “bite game” with him earlier in the day in order to get him to calm down. He also told the officers that he hadn’t noticed any bruising on the boy’s body. The mother of the child was at work when the incident took place and Tunstall was looking after the boy.

The body was taken for autopsy. It was revealed that the victim died from blunt force trauma to his torso and head. The autopsy also revealed that the boy’s lung was ruptured and that serious injuries were inflicted on the boy an hour before his death.

Following this, the accused was taken into custody and charged with one count each of murder and aggravated battery. He was held at the Lake County Jail without bail. Investigation into the incident was ongoing.

In a similar incident in Michigan in March, a man was charged with murder in connection with the death of his girlfriend’s infant son. Police responded to a home after receiving a call from the eight-month-old infant’s mother saying that she found the boy lying unresponsive in his crib. The boy was taken to a local hospital where he died. An autopsy revealed that he died from blunt force trauma to the head.

It was then revealed that the infant’s mother went to a nearby store leaving the infant in the care of her boyfriend, Jermaine Abron. When questioned, Abron confessed to “grabbing the boy out of his crib by his leg and forcibly hitting him against objects in the room such as a table and dresser.”