Peter Hendy pleaded guilty Thursday to second-degree murder in connection with the death of 4-year-old Kamari Zavon Taylor. Prosecutors dropped an initial charge of first-degree murder in exchange for the plea.
On August 5 around 2:05 p.m. police found the child unconscious in an apartment complex on the 5600 block of Nannie Helen Burroughs Avenue Northeast. He was transported to the Children’s National Medical Center where he was later pronounced dead. An autopsy revealed the cause of death to be blunt force trauma; the case was ruled a homicide. Hendy, 33, was arrested the next day and held on suspicion of first-degree murder in the child’s death.
Prosecutors said Thursday that Hendy struck his girlfriend’s 4-year-old son and then left the child alone for over two hours.
According to plea documents, Hendy had taken the child outside to play after his mother, Hendy’s girlfriend, left for work. Hendy became upset after the child disobeyed his restrictions on how far the child could ride his scooter. When Hendy scolded the child, the child responded that he did not have to listen to him. Hendy then punched the child in the body four to five times, one of the times a direct punch to the stomach, court documents state.
Once inside the apartment the child collapsed to the floor and could not stand. Hendy offered the child food and water, but he declined, so Hendy then carried the child to his bed, and then went outside to sell marijuana. An hour later Hendy came back to the apartment and noticed the child had a “blank look” on his face and looked “spent.” Hendy went outside again for another hour to sell more marijuana. When he returned, the child was not breathing and his neck was stiff, documents state.
At around 2:00 p.m. Hendy called 911. The child was transported to a hospital and at 2:46 p.m. was pronounced dead. An autopsy concluded that the child suffered from broken ribs, bruises from being struck in the stomach, and a liver lacerated in three places, plea documents state.
Kamari’s mother sat in the courtroom Thursday, wearing a black sweater with a baby picture of her son printed across her back. With tears running down her face she said, “I can never see my son again. Never.”
“He just said it like it wasn’t somebody’s life,” she said of the plea. “Like it didn’t matter.”
Hendy is scheduled to be sentenced on November 22 by Judge Ronna Beck.
The proffer of facts for this case has been added below:
