Mom's boyfriend charged with murder in punching death of Tacoma toddler

TACOMA -- A 31-year-old man was charged with murder Wednesday in the death of his girlfriend's 15-month-old son, who died from blunt force trauma to the abdomen.

Dedric Lamar Greer was charged with second-degree murder for punching the toddler, Sayvon Jordan, in the abdomen, causing fatal injuries.

Greer pleaded not guilty and is being held in the Pierce County Jail in lieu of $2 million bail.

On Saturday morning, Greer and his girlfriend took Sayvon to the hospital because he appeared “stiff” and was unresponsive, prosecutors said. Doctors determined the boy had been dead for some time and notified police.

The night before, prosecutors said, the boy’s mother left Greer alone with Sayvon for an hour. When she returned, the boy was sick, listless and had been throwing up.

Greer told detectives that Sayvon had choked on a rock and he performed the Heimlich maneuver to make him spit up the rock. He claimed he got the rock out of Sayvon's mouth but continued to give him the Heimlich maneuver several more times.

Prosecutors said the children that lived in the home told detectives they saw Greer grab Sayvon by the neck, throw him on the bed and say, “Stupid baby, go to sleep!” They also said Greer pushed his fists into the boy’s stomach, and hit him in the head with a flat iron.



The medical examiner also found scars of varying age on Sayvon's body and, according to prosecutors, the medical examiner believes the same abdominal trauma had been occurring for weeks.

Greer, his girlfriend and the children had only been in the area for a few days after traveling on a bus from Arkansas to Tacoma, the prosecutor's office said.

They were living in a home in the 2500 block of South J Street in Tacoma.

Police say they alerted the state's Child Protective Services about their current investigation.