Baby Elijah spent his initial three months in a hospital, dependent on oxygen and respiratory assistance due to his premature birth.
On January 13, 2024, he was finally discharged to the care of his mother, Elyce. Tragically, just six days later, the infant’s life was cut short by Elyce’s boyfriend, Benjamin Joseph Swann.
At around 4 a.m. on January 19, the 31-year-old Swann went to calm the crying baby, but Elyce was startled by a loud noise from Elijah’s room.
Swann emerged, handing the baby to Elyce with the words, “take this f—ing baby,” before stepping away to prepare a bottle.
It was then that Elyce noticed her son was making unusual wheezing sounds and struggling to breathe.
Despite Swann’s insistence to wait, Elyce decided to act on her instincts and call for an ambulance after seeing her son’s skin turn blue.
Elijah was taken to hospital by paramedics, and doctors ultimately determined he had suffered a non-survivable brain injury due to a blunt force trauma to the head.
He was taken off life support and died in his mother’s arms in the early hours of January 20 at only 115 days old.
In the immediate aftermath and when he was arrested on February 8, Swann denied he had struck Elijah, pushed the little boy or dropped him.
He also deflected the blame to Elyce, claiming she had been suffering from severe post-natal depression and was capable of doing something to her son.
Swann continued to deny he killed Elijah for another 20 months before he finally pleaded guilty to child homicide in the Victorian Supreme Court.
Elyce confronted her former partner during his plea hearing on Thursday, saying she regretted bringing his “cancerous evil” into their lives.
“I believed his lies when he said he wanted to be Elijah’s stepdad,” she told the court.
“I never should have trusted him.”
Elyce said it had been her lifelong ambition to become a mother, but now her days were filled with continuous devastation.
“I had to watch the colour drain from my son’s skin,” she said.
“This unimaginable pain … is one that no one should have to suffer.”
Swann appeared to wipe away tears as the statement was read aloud, but his barrister, Rishi Nathwani KC, conceded he could not say there was evidence of remorse.
Swann had been in a volatile relationship with Elyce and was seeking help for anger management issues and drug use in the lead-up to Elijah’s death, Nathwani said.
But Swann had no prior convictions for violence against children, and he did not have a history of being abusive towards Elijah, the barrister argued.
Swann carried out the single act of violence against the baby boy while he was frustrated, tired and angry, Nathwani said.
It was accepted that Swann then tried to deflect blame towards the mother, but Nathwani said admitting his actions sooner would not have changed the outcome for the little boy.
Crown prosecutor Mark Gibson KC also accepted that was the case.
“The injury itself was so severe that Elijah’s fate was sealed from the outset,” Gibson told the court.
The prosecutor argued deterrence was important in sentencing as Swann needed to know he could not take out his anger against a child, even when he was tired and frustrated.
Justice James Gorton will sentence Swann at a later date.
