A California couple have been sentenced to more than a decade behind bars for the brutal murder of a 1-year-old boy. Samantha Garver, 26, and her boyfriend Sergio Mena, 34, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and child abuse causing great bodily injury to her 1-year-old son, Henry Wheatley-Brown.
Horrific circumstances
Little Henry died in horrific circumstances while in Mena’s care at the couple's home in Sugarloaf, near Big Bear City, California on September 30, 2023. Wheatley-Brown died from severe burns after Mena put the toddler in a “scalding” hot bath and abandoned him, allegedly to pick up methamphetamine.
Following an investigation, authorities said the boy was the victim of ongoing abuse, suffering second- and third-degree burns on his body as well as bodily bruising and several healing fractures in both arms. Child services also concluded that the cause of the toddler's death was “abuse or neglect,” according to The Daily Express US.
No medical help sought
Upon returning to the house, Mena found the little boy screaming in agony after getting “severely burned” in the bath, according to the San Bernardino County District Attorney's Office. However, he made no effort to help relieve the boy's pain, prosecutors allege. “Despite Henry's extensive and life-threatening injuries, neither defendant sought medical care, instead attempting to treat the burns with over‑the‑counter ointment,” prosecutors said.
It wasn't until the following day that the couple alerted authorities to his “shallow breathing.” The district attorney's office said, “Paramedics found Henry without a pulse, ice‑cold to the touch and severely dehydrated.”
Sentences and previous abuse
The district attorney's office said in a statement, “Although nothing can bring back baby Henry or erase the suffering he endured, today's sentences deliver justice and ensure these defendants will never again harm a child. The San Bernardino County District Attorney's Office will honour Henry's memory by never forgetting him and by continuing to fight for vulnerable children.” Sergio Mena will spend 21 years behind bars while Samantha Garver will spend 14 years in jail.
There are years' worth of records documenting the alleged abuse that the little boy and his three older siblings suffered, which led to the San Bernardino County Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) getting involved with Garver, according to The Los Angeles Times. The mother allegedly told staff at DCFS that she “felt like putting a pillow over” one of her children to stop their relentless crying, and posted a question on Facebook inquiring whether “duct taping a child's mouth is abusive.”
The perplexing case led investigators to have differing views, with some saying the children faced “high risk” of abuse while another argued the children were “safe.” The boy's grandmother, Sierra Rivers, appeared to dismiss the severity of the abuse. “I got abused as a kid, and I got hit as a baby, and I turned out fine,” Rivers told The Los Angeles Times.
