Inset left: Dioblis Williams (Framingham Police Department). Inset right: Ja'Mir Jones (Ohio Attorney General's Office). Background: Body camera footage shows Dioblis Williams being questioned by law enforcement after Ja'Mir Jones is found dead (Columbus Division of Police/WSYX/YouTube).
A man in Ohio will spend decades behind bars after authorities say he beat his girlfriend's 2-year-old son to death and then lied that the toddler drowned in the bathtub.
Dioblis Williams, 26, was charged with murder in the death of Ja'Mir Jones, as Law&Crime previously reported.
He was sentenced to between 13 and 18 1/2 years in prison this week after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter and endangering children, Columbus, Ohio, NBC affiliate WCMH reported.
The case stretches back more than six years.
On March 25, 2020, officers with the Columbus Division of Police arrived at a home after Williams called them about a child drowning in a bathtub. When officers got there, Ja'Mir was not breathing, according to the Ohio Attorney General's Office.
He was pronounced dead after being transported to a children's hospital, and the case was ruled a homicide.
As police investigated, body camera footage obtained by local ABC affiliate WSYX showed Williams speaking with officers, reportedly telling them the boy had drowned in the tub. But authorities were skeptical.
An autopsy found that Ja'Mir did not drown; rather, his death was attributed to blunt force trauma to the abdomen. Officials said the boy had bruises on his face, torso, and neck, but his lungs were unobstructed.
An affidavit reviewed by WSYX stated that after Ja'Mir had an accident in his diaper, Williams — who was the boyfriend of Ja'Mir's mother and serving as the boy's babysitter that day — repeatedly hit the child, causing his death.
More than half a decade later and roughly 750 miles east, the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) announced a warrant for the arrest of Williams after he was believed to be in the city of Framingham, Massachusetts. On Aug. 27, at about 8:30 a.m., a K-9 officer with the Framingham Police Department was walking to a briefing when he "noticed a pair of individuals walking on the sidewalk, one of whom appeared to be wearing a wig," the agency said.
Officers kept looking at the person and "came to the determination that the individual wearing the wig was indeed the male that the USMS and [Violent Fugitive Apprehension Section] were intending to arrest," per the police department. The defendant was brought back to Ohio and jailed.