Sitter was immersed in video game, child dies

Published 9:12 am Thursday, November 1, 2018

 

Staff report

A Beaumont man was indicted Wednesday on a second-degree injury to a child charge because a toddler in his care last March died while he played a video game.

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A Jefferson County grand jury indicted Troy Delano Cheek Jr., 19, in connection with the March 7 incident at the apartment at 4155 Maida, Beaumont, he shared with the child’s mother.

An affidavit said Cheek was playing the video game in one room around 3 o’clock that afternoon after he placed the child, Naomi Nabors, 1, on a bed in the next room. Cheek told a Beaumont police investigator that at one point, he looked up from his game to see the child near the edge of the bed, facing inward, and considered moving her to a safer position.

“He told me he thought to himself, at that moment, he should move Naomi to the middle of the bed before she fell, but he decided to disregard that thought and continue to play his video game,” Detective D.K. LeBeouf wrote in the affidavit that was revealed with the indictment. “Seconds later he heard a thump and ran into the room to see what happened and found Naomi face up on the floor, next to the bed.”

The detective wrote that the indicted man moved the child to another bed to sleep, but later found her unconscious. An autopsy showed the child died from blunt force trauma sustained in the fall, the affidavit said.

Bond was set at $20,000 for Cheek, who was held at the Jefferson County Jail.