A jury this morning convicted Alexander Lucas Barnes of murdering his girlfriend's 9-month-old son by causing fractures to
the child's skull to make him stop crying.
The Santa Ana 20-year-old, was found guilty by a jury of one felony count of second
degree murder and one felony count of child abuse resulting in death, faces a maximum sentence of 25 years to life in state prison at his
Jan. 13 sentencing.
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Barnes was babysitting his girlfriend's
9-month-old baby Isaiah Prim-Ortiz, who was not his biological
child, for the first time the morning of Oct. 6, 2009, while
his
girlfriend went to class at a nearby community college. Angered by the
baby's crying, Barnes allegedly hit Isaiah in the head with blunt force.
The
young man put the boy down for a nap around 1 p.m., but when Barnes' mother came to the home, she discovered the baby was not
breathing and called for help.
Isaiah was taken to a local hospital,
where he was pronounced dead at 4 p.m. Three separate skull fractures
were said to be the cause. Barnes was arrested following a Santa Ana police investigation.
Previous coverage:
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.