The fight began with a mother and her boyfriend arguing over groceries.
At some point, prosecutors in Camden County, New Jersey, say, the woman’s 2-year-old boy became upset that 24-year-old Zachary Tricoche had pushed his mother and began to cry, according to the Courier-Post.
That’s when Tricoche attacked, prosecutors say, punching the 29-pound boy so hard that the toddler was launched into a wall, Camden County Assistant Prosecutor Christine Shah said at a court hearing last week, according to NJ.com.
Then, Shah said, Tricoche instructed the 36-inch-tall toddler to “put his hands up,” meaning “that he should form a boxing stance to fight this full-grown man,” NJ.com reported.
At that point, Tricoche hit the boy again, “causing J.B. to again strike his head on a wall and rendering him unconscious,” Shah said, according to the Courier-Post.
Both punches struck the boy – identified as Jamil Baskerville Jr. – in his torso, according to CBS affiliate WFMY.
The child’s mother called 911 around 11:30 p.m. Saturday and said her toddler was unconscious, the station reported.
Citing a probable-cause statement, the Courier-Post reported the desperate rush to save the child’s life:
About 30 minutes after that phone call – after the boy had been transported to Cooper University Hospital – he was pronounced dead, WFMY reported.
A medical examiner would later determine that the child’s liver has been crushed by the blows, leading him to bleed to death internally, WFMY reported. The station reported that “the official cause of death is blunt force trauma and the manner of death is homicide.”
Tricoche, of Pennsauken, New Jersey, is facing murder charges, according to the New York Post. He was arraigned in Camden County Superior Court on Tuesday and remains in Camden County jail on a $1 million cash bail, the paper reported.
