A woman from Florida has been sentenced to life imprisonment after fatally assaulting her girlfriend’s 3-year-old son with a tire iron and delaying more than three hours before seeking medical assistance, by which time the boy had likely already passed away.

Te’Lea Jefferson, aged 28, entered a plea of no contest to charges of first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse related to the 2020 demise of her girlfriend’s son, known in local reports as Miguel. For the murder, she received a sentence of life in prison, and for the child abuse, an additional 30 years.

According to a probable cause arrest affidavit, on October 19, 2020, Jefferson brought the boy to the hospital around 7 p.m. He was unresponsive, with a body temperature of only 88 degrees and had suffered “severe trauma” to his face and head. Doctors declared him dead shortly after his arrival. This prompted the hospital staff to promptly notify the Tallahassee Police Department.

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Jefferson, who lived with her girlfriend, Miguel and his 6-year-old sibling, claimed the boy was standing on the sink brushing his teeth when he fell and hit the toilet, causing the porcelain to shatter, the affidavit said. Cops noted at least six deep lacerations on his head and face, along with a nearly severed finger. Investigators determined the injuries were not consistent with a fall, as Jefferson had claimed. Cops also noted Miguel had injuries throughout his body in various stages of healing.

Post-Miranda, Jefferson told detectives she had watched Miguel all day while his mother was at work and his sibling at school. The sibling came home from school around 3:15 p.m. Some 20 minutes later, she told Miguel to brush his teeth. She went into the bathroom and saw that he was standing at the sink. Jefferson said she told him to get down and momentarily left the bathroom. That’s when she said he fell and hit the toilet. The lacerations were caused by the shattered toilet, she insisted.

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But cops confronted her about her timeline. Had she brought Miguel to the hospital immediately after he suffered his injuries, she would have arrived around 4 p.m., not 7 p.m. Investigators also told her the boy’s injuries were not consistent with a fall. That’s when she admitted to hitting him with a tire iron, the affidavit said.

She told cops she became angry when the boy refused to climb down from the sink. Jefferson grabbed the tire iron from a tool kit and threw it at him, hitting him in the side of the face. It also hit the toilet, which is what actually caused it to shatter, the affidavit said. She hit the boy a total of three or four times, she said.

“She recalled seeing blood spray from [Miguel’s] wounds as she struck him,” detectives wrote.