Omni Maxx Morningstar, Mankato, Minnesota dad charged with the suffocation death of baby son, Remington Tristan Morningstar after 10 month old was kept under weighted blanket for hours to keep boy from moving during sleep.
A Mankato, Minnesota father has been charged with the suffocation death of his ten–month–old son after the boy died under the weight of a blanket as he napped.
Omni Maxx Morningstar, 26, was charged with second-degree manslaughter following the death of his son, Remington Tristan Morningstar last year, according to the Mankato Police Department.
According to criminal charges filed by Blue Earth County prosecutors, Morningstar called 911 on the afternoon of Oct. 1, saying there was a ‘practically dead baby’ when asked about the situation. The infant showed no signs of life when first responders arrived and was later pronounced dead at hospital.
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Morningstar reportedly told officers that he put his son down for a nap face down on the bed, and covered him with a 20-pound weighted blanket around 11 a.m.
Of note, during questioning, the parent told officers that he is autistic, raising questions whether the parent necessarily understood the consequences of his actions, or lack of.
When he went to check on the baby just before 4 p.m., the 10-month-old was unresponsive, with the boy’s temperature 104.7 degrees.
Morningstar added that he ‘did not understand’ how his son’s temperature had risen, as he attempted to explain what happened to his baby son.
Morningstar told police his son had been ‘perfectly healthy’ after waking up around 9am while being fed by bottle according to the Minnesota Star Tribune.
Mankato dad waited five hours before checking on baby
However, after placing him in bed and covering him with a weighted blanket, Morningstar never returned to check on his son until right before he called 911.
Morningstar said he did not go to check on the baby during the five-hour time period the boy napped, telling officers he was working on Discord and talking to friends with headphones on, but ‘claimed he could still hear everything,’ according to criminal charges.
Morningstar also told officers that the child had a history of getting fevers and was ‘colicky’ and they had a difficult time controlling his temperature. He said had been using a weighted blanket for four to five months to keep the baby’s legs from moving, and that the baby had overheated twice before.
According to the criminal complaint the father was quoted as saying, ‘I’m thinking in my head, like, five hours. Huh. I really do wish I would have checked on him. I mean it only happened twice before. It spiked two times and we fixed him two times.’
Police found multiple blankets on the bed that Remington was placed in, including multiple weighted blankets weighing just under 20 pounds, as well as large comforters.
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But there had been prior episodes and warnings.
In one incident, the baby was taken to the hospital, where Morningstar was warned about using the weighed blanket. Morningstar also added that sometimes he would cover the baby’s head to help muffle the child’s scream according to Bringmethenews.
During another incident one month before the baby’s death, the child’s mother, Isabella Morningstar said she came home and found her son covered head to toe in a king-sized blanket, with a fever of 104 to 105 degrees. Morningstar allegedly told her that he forgot about the child because he was playing video games.
The Medical Examiner ruled the baby’s cause of death as probable asphyxia due to compression by a weighted blanket.
If convicted, Morningstar faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, a $20,000 fine or both.
