Jeffrey James Exon and Aurora Exon (Shawnee County Department of Corrections; Brennamen Mathena Funeral Home screenshot)
A 47-year-old man in Kansas will likely spend the rest of his days behind bars for locking his 2-year-old daughter in her room for multiple days without food, ultimately starving the little girl to death. Shawnee County District Judge Jessica Heinen on Friday handed down the maximum sentence of 683 months in a state correctional facility to Jeffrey James Exon for the slaying of Aurora Exon, prosecutors confirmed to Law&Crime.
Authorities said that Exon locked Aurora and her then-4-year-old brother in their rooms, got drunk, and "passed out" for several days without attending to them even once, something he would do regularly.
A jury in April found Exon guilty on all four of the felony charges he was facing, including one count of first-degree murder committed during an inherently dangerous felony, second-degree murder, aggravated endangering the life of a child, and failure to report the death of a child.
As previously reported by Law&Crime, officers with the Topeka Police Department on Jan. 5, 2021, responded to a 911 call at a home located in the 3500 block of S.W. 10th Avenue regarding an unresponsive female toddler. The caller — later identified as Exon — told the emergency dispatcher that the little girl had been "starving herself."
First responders and emergency medical personnel arrived on the scene but had no chance to save the child, saying she had been dead for several days. Officers and medics on the scene reported that Aurora was cold to the touch and in rigor mortis, a post-mortem stiffening of the muscles that typically does not set in until 12 hours after death. The toddler was pronounced dead at the scene.
While processing the scene, police found at least five empty liquor bottles in Exon's bedroom.
Deputy Shawnee County District Coroner Altaf Hossain, the forensic pathologist who conducted Aurora's autopsy, determined that the toddler's cause of death was marasmus, a type of protein-energy malnutrition that resulted from negligence on the part of her caregiver.
Investigators said that all of the crimes took place between Dec. 26, 2020 — the last time Aurora was seen alive — and Jan. 5, 2021, when police found her dead.
At the time of Aurora's death, Exon had custody of both Aurora and her brother, Theodore "Teddy" Exon. During the trial, the children's mother, Seonaid Nichols, testified that after she and Exon broke up, her housing situation was not well-suited to having children around, so she agreed to let the kids stay with their father.
Prosecutors at trial recounted how Teddy told authorities that Exon would lock him and Aurora in their rooms for multiple days at a time without giving them any food, telling the kids he kept them imprisoned while he "slept," according to a press release from the County District Attorney's Office. Prosecutors at trial said that Exon "passed out in his bed for days on end," according to a report from the Topeka Capital-Journal.
Others who testified during the proceedings included three employees from the Sheldon Child Development Center Head Start, the preschool that Teddy attended. All three school employees spoke of having serious concerns about Exon's physical and mental state, saying that in October 2020 he appeared gaunt and visibly drunk when he picked up his son from the bus stop.
One of the preschool employees also recalled that Exon had tried to explain away his diminished physical state by saying he had been on pain medication for a neck injury and drank a single alcoholic beverage earlier in the day.
Exon's brother, Michael Exon, told jurors that his younger brother had a long history of alcohol abuse, adding that Exon also lied about being sober in the last two years before Aurora's death.
In August 2021, Shawnee County District Judge Nancy Parrish determined that Exon was able to stand trial following a competency evaluation.
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