Inset: King Phelps (WTTG/YouTube). Background: The area in Washington, D.C., where the victim was found dead (WTTG/YouTube).
A father in Washington, D.C., is behind bars after authorities said his 7-month-old son was found dead with blunt force injuries to his torso.
Dion Phelps, 29, was indicted by a grand jury in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia on charges of first-degree felony murder in the death of King Phelps, as well as two counts of first-degree cruelty to children, involving two separate children, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia specified.
The defendant is also charged with two counts of assault and one count of felony threats "related to threats against a witness."
The Metropolitan Police Department in D.C. announced on Oct. 23 that at about 2:15 a.m. on March 16, its officers went to the 1300 block of Morris Road in the city "for the report of an unconscious infant." Officers and emergency responders found King with "no signs consistent with life," and the child was pronounced dead.
Phelps and "the leaseholder of the apartment" were there, too, according to law enforcement.
An autopsy was performed, with the medical examiner determining that "the infant's death was caused by complications of blunt force trauma" to the torso, and "the manner of death was homicide."
Phelps was arrested and charged with murder on Oct. 23 — weeks before the grand jury indicted him. Authorities have not shared any specific details about what they think the father did to his son.
King's grandmother was left distraught by the child's death.
"Right now I'm feeling depressed, upset, and I am a grieving grandmother that is just so unbearably … I don't know how to express myself," she told local Fox affiliate WTTG.
She said she will miss "everything" about her grandson "due to the fact that he was supposed to be here."