SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — A toddler suffered multiple blunt force injuries to the head before dying last June, the San Diego County Medical Examiner has found.
Adrian Dominic Soto’s death last year shook family and friends who knew the little boy, who was about to turn two years old.
“I was planning his party and celebrating his birthday,” the boy’s grandmother, Rosario Ramirez, said Tuesday.
Ramirez told Team 10 she was with her grandson the day before he died and the boy was totally fine.
San Diego Police charged Adrian’s mother’s boyfriend McArvin Caringal-Sanchez with assault and murder after his death. Police said the boy sustained serious traumatic internal injuries that pointed to child abuse. They didn’t release specifics.
But Adrian’s autopsy report has plenty of details about the boy’s last day alive. He was wearing blue pajama bottoms and was “well-developed and “well nourished.”
The report, obtained by Team 10, says the boyfriend fed the baby and took a nap. About 40 minutes later “the boyfriend stated he woke up to the decedent banging his head against the headboard of the daybed they were sleeping on.”
Caringal-Sanchez told investigators after Adrian stopped banging his head, he became unresponsive, and Caringal-Sanchez called his girlfriend. She came home to find her son dead.
Deputy Medical Examiner Greg Pizarro determined multiple blunt force injuries, especially to the head, caused Adrian’s death. He ruled it a homicide.
He said the toddler had multiple skull fractures on almost all skull bones and “multiple acute traumatic cutaneous injuries.”
Caringal-Sanchez pleaded not guilty to the charges last year and is due back in court next month for a preliminary examination.
