KENNETT — Judge Robert Mayer sentenced Matthew Thomas Estes, Jr., 33, of Kennett, Missouri, to 30 years in the Department of Corrections for assaulting a one-year-old child.
A Dunklin County jury had found the defendant guilty of the felonies of assault in the first degree and abuse of a child causing serious physical injury after a three-day jury trial in September.
At sentencing, Dunklin County Prosecutor Nicholas Jain argued that the court should consider the fact that after being found guilty, the defendant resisted deputies while they took him into custody after the jury rendered their verdict. The prosecutor also presented recordings from jail calls of the defendant, where he threatens others associated with the criminal justice system.
Jain highlighted that while, fortunately, the victim in this case does not have lasting injuries, the assault was serious enough that it could have killed the child, and the defendant should be sentenced accordingly and receive the maximum punishment.
Based on the defendant’s prior felony convictions for burglary, stealing and tampering with a motor vehicle, he is considered a prior and persistent felony offender. The defendant had also previously been convicted of domestic assault. As a prior and persistent offender, the defendant faced up to 30 years on each of the charges.
Mayer sentenced the defendant to 30 years in the Department of Corrections for assault in the first degree and 16 years on the child abuse charge, with the sentences to be served concurrently.
Prosecutor Jain thanked Mayer for imposing that sentence and sending a clear message that those who harm children will face stiff and serious punishment.
The evidence presented at trial was that on the morning of April 26, 2016, the defendant’s then girlfriend found her 21-month-old son with bruises all over his face and body and his eye swollen shut. She took him to the Piggott Community Hospital and he was later airlifted to Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital, where he was diagnosed with three skull fractures and a buildup of blood on his brain among other injuries.
The doctor who examined him testified at the trial these injuries were life threatening and caused by multiple blows of blunt force trauma and were the result of child abuse. The evidence at trial was the defendant was alone in the house with the child a short time the previous evening, after his mother put him to sleep, while she ran an errand for the defendant. Both the mother and the defendant testified they were the only people in the home the night before the injuries were discovered.
The defendant told investigators the injuries must have been an accident and his girlfriend could not have caused them. The defendant testified at trial, blaming his former girlfriend for the child’s injuries. When the police were searching for the defendant to question him, they found him in a house hiding under a carpet roll behind a washing machine.
Jain also thanked the Kennett Police Department and the Missouri State Highway Patrol for their work in investigating this case, along with the staff of the Office of the Prosecuting Attorney for their tireless work on this case.