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Anthoni Cirra (Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office)
A 26-year-old man in Wisconsin is facing decades behind bars after admitting to killing his friends’ 9-month-old baby boy, beating the child to death after volunteering to babysit while the parents were at work. Anthoni J. Cirra on Tuesday formally pleaded guilty to one count of second-degree reckless homicide and one count of first-degree recklessly endangering the safety of a child in connection with the slaying of Lochlan Steffes, court records reviewed by Law&Crime show.
In exchange for pleading to the more serious charges, prosecutors with the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office agreed to drop a third charge of felony bail jumping. However, that charge will be read into the record, meaning Circuit Court Judge Jeffrey A. Wagner may consider the underlying conduct that led to the charge when determining Cirra’s sentence.
Cirra is facing a maximum of 25 years on the reckless homicide charge and up to 12 1/2 years on the reckless endangering charge. He is currently scheduled to appear in court for his sentencing hearing on March 8, records show.
As previously reported by Law&Crime, the victim on the morning of July 7 was brought to the emergency room at Children’s Wisconsin and admitted with an array of severe injuries. The boy was unconscious and not breathing, with authorities describing his injuries as “life-threatening and highly concerning for child physical abuse.”
The following day, doctors took Lochlan off life support and pronounced him dead at approximately 7:19 p.m., police said. A preliminary evaluation determined that the boy suffered a significant brain injury “consistent with sustaining blunt force trauma to the head.”
The child’s mother told police that after being introduced to Cirra through a mutual friend, Cirra helped her and Lochlan’s father get jobs at his place of employment.
On July 6, both of Lochlan’s parents had to work. Cirra, who had the day off, volunteered to watch the baby. He picked the couple up at approximately 8:30 a.m. and dropped them off at work. The parents left him with Lochlan and a diaper bag containing diapers, formula, clothes and baby wipes. He brought the child to his home located in the 1500 block of S. 3rd Street.
Cirra picked up Lochlan’s parents at approximately 4:30 p.m. that same day. The boy’s mother said she noticed new bruises on Lochlan’s arm and said that the child’s breathing was “labored and spaced out,” according to the affidavit. She asked Lochlan about the injury and he “claimed to not know what caused the bruise on the child’s arm,” police wrote.
That evening the baby’s condition continued to worsen and Lochlan’s mother grew increasingly concerned. When she said that she wanted to take Lochlan to the hospital, Cirra told her that she was “overreacting.” Later that evening, the baby’s mother told the father that they should take Lochlan to the hospital, but he told her it would be “rude” to wake up Cirra unnecessarily for a ride to the hospital. At approximately 5:30 a.m. the mother said Lochlan’s breathing became “more of a snore,” which led her to believe he was doing better. She then went back to sleep.
On the morning of July 7, Cirra woke up Lochlan’s parents after finding the baby unresponsive with pale skin and blue lips. As the boy’s mother performed CPR, Cirra “said that he made a mistake” and exclaimed, “This is my fault.”
In a July 7, 2022, interview with detectives, Cirra “admitted to bouncing (the child) on his knee and holding (the child) above his head but continued to deny abusing (the child),” the complaint stated.
When investigators on July 8 told Cirra that Lochlan would likely die from his injuries, Cirra disclosed that “he dropped the car seat holding (the child) on the front porch steps. The car seat landed on its side at the bottom of the steps, but (the child) was not injured and appeared fine,” according to the complaint. Police noted that it was “the first time Anthoni Cirra ever disclosed a fall.”
Cirra additionally told investigators that “he placed the child on the floor and his head struck the floor” when he tried to give Lochlan a bath.
Notably, Cirra also called his girlfriend and complained that the baby wouldn’t stop crying.
