Jovani Martinez, as 2-year-olds are wont to do, was fooling around with his milk bottle, causing it to spill. This didn't sit well with Manuel Garcia, the boyfriend of the toddler's mother, Lawanda Martinez. So he decided to forcefully make his displeasure known...
He threw the toddler onto a mattress, but Jovani got back up. So Garcia began to pummel him, punching him in the kidneys, stomach and chest.
Mother Lawanda Martinez would later take the boy to visit his grandma, Wanda Williams, in Racine, Wisconsin that day. Grandma noticed that Jovani was barely conscious, kept falling, couldn't stand up on his own and was shaking. She urged Martinez to take Jovani to the the hospital.
But mom said he always acted this way and took him home. She gave him Tylenol that evening. But by 11:30, she noticed that his body had gone cold and his lips blue.
By the time they arrived at the hospital, Jovani's kidney's were failing. He wouldn't survive. A pathologist discovered that his intestines were perforated, his liver and pancreas were lacerated, and he had broken ribs. This wasn't something that could be caused by accident.
Garcia, 40, has now been charged with reckless homicide. Martinez, 23, is charged with neglect of a child causing death.
