I missed this story last year. While it’s an absolutely awful one, it checks too many of our boxes here for me not to mention it.
It seems that Travis Stackhouse was given some cheesecake for Father’s Day. He had one piece, and then some of the damn kids got into it. This upset him, so he went to a bar with some pals. When he returned at two in the morning, he was still…er…cheesed off about the whole thing, so he did what any calm, caring, rational father would do. He violently punched his 5-year-old to death.
A Milwaukee father punched and killed his 5-year-old son because the boy ate a piece of his cheesecake, prosecutors say.
Travis Stackhouse, 29, told police he punched his son in the stomach Friday because he was upset three of his children were eating the cheesecake he’d gotten for Father’s Day, according to a criminal complaint. Stackhouse told police he only had one piece.Paramedics arrived about 2 a.m. Saturday at the home in the 2600 block of West Ruby Avenue and pronounced the boy dead after CPR did not revive him. The Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s Office determined he suffered a ruptured stomach, bruised kidneys and a torn adrenal gland. He died from blunt force trauma to the abdomen.
Stackhouse also told police he hit the child’s face with the back of his hand and that he had a metal rod in his hand that would make punches painful.Stackhouse originally told police the child was injured because he fell down the stairs, according to the complaint. Paramedics didn’t think his injuries were consistent with a fall, and the boy’s 6-year-old brother told police he did not fall down the stairs.
They noticed bruising around his eyes, a cut to the lower lip and a laceration to the sternum.
I haven’t yet been able to find any up to date information about a verdict or a sentence, but Stackhouse was charged at the time with first-degree reckless homicide and if convicted was looking at as many as 60 years in prison. Seems light, honestly.
