Background: The apartment on Walden Pond Court in Newport News, Va., where the victim was found unresponsive (WVEC/YouTube). Inset: Katrina Marie Sudberry (Newport News Sheriff's Office).
A Virginia woman is accused of beating her 5-year-old son until he had severe injuries to his internal organs and died.
Katrina Marie Sudberry, 27, has been charged with second-degree murder and felony child abuse, the Newport News Police Department announced. She is in the Newport News Jail.
On Thursday at about 2:20 p.m., officers with the police department were called to an apartment on the 300 block of Walden Pond Court about an "unresponsive" child. It was a "Code Blue" — according to court records obtained by local ABC affiliate WVEC — meaning someone was having a medical emergency.
Officers entered the home to find a woman — identified as Sudberry — "screaming and crying in a back bedroom," while a 5-year-old boy referred to as J.H. was "covered in bruises over the entirety of his body" and lying on the floor only in his underwear.
Medics brought the child to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead later that evening.
Detectives spoke with Sudberry, and she allegedly "admitted to using corporal punishment to discipline" her child. She reportedly stated that she "used her hands and a belt, as well as exercises (push-ups and wall squats) for discipline."
As recently as two days before officers' arrival, the mother apparently "had used a belt" to punish J.H., and she was the only person "to watch and have custody" of him in the previous three weeks.
On the Thursday in question, J.H. was "lethargic and had vomited earlier in the morning," Sudberry said, per the court records. Still, she maintained that "she was monitoring him as he lay in his bed and she was doing housework."
When Sudberry went to check on him again, he was reportedly unresponsive on the floor. She said she called her mother, and her mother told her to call 911.
"When Ms. Sudberry was asked why she did not seek medical attention earlier, she stated she 'knew how it would look,' referring to the bruising on J.H.'s body," the court documents state.
An autopsy was conducted the following day, which determined that J.H. "suffered catastrophic injuries to organs within the abdominal cavity to include multiple lacerations to the liver, a laceration to his kidney, damage to his stomach, diaphragm, and intestines."
Blunt force trauma caused his death, authorities determined, saying bruising patterns "were consistent with various forms of corporal punishment" that the defendant "admitted to during her interviews." Police seized a belt, "as well as the buckle that broke off of it," from the crime scene.
Their upstairs neighbor, Elena Sierson, told area NBC affiliate WAVY she saw Sudberry and J.H. the day before police were called to the home.
"The day before the incident, I was coming outside, bringing my kids into the car, and I was trying to tell her, 'Oh, he's so cute,' and my kids were trying to talk to him and her, but she was just basically being mean, forcefully dragging him to the car," said Sierson.
Sudberry's next court appearance is scheduled for Sept. 9.
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