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Crime Jan 22, 2022
The John Benoit Detention facility. | Photo courtesy of the Riverside County Sheriff's Department
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A 30-year-old man was behind bars Friday without bail for allegedly torturing and killing his 7-month-old son.
Jawhon Sherod Burts was arrested Dec. 19, with a criminal complaint stating that he tortured the child between May and December of last year.
The complaint only identifies the child as K.B., but a relative told KESQ — which first reported the case — the child was a boy, named Kyrie Victor Burts. Authorities confirmed the boy was Burts’ son.
According to the Indio Police Department, police received a report of an injured child at 10:27 a.m. Dec. 19 in the 46700 block of Clinton Street and arrived to find the child with suspicious injuries. Detectives at the scene determined that the injuries were the result of abuse, and arrested Burts without incident.
The child was taken to a hospital, where he died from his injuries on Dec. 21, according to Public Information Officer Ben Guitron.
Burts was subsequently charged with one felony count each of murder, assault on a child under 8 causing great bodily injury resulting in death and torture.
Burts pleaded not guilty in December and is due back in court Jan. 28 for a felony settlement conference.
He remains held without bail at the John Benoit Detention Center in Indio.
Burts previously pleaded guilty to one felony count of inflicting corporal injury on a spouse and one misdemeanor count of fighting in public in separate cases, according to court records.
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