A 31-year-old man described as having "devoted his life to crime" was given an 80-year state prison sentence on Monday morning.
Reginald Tumlin was sentenced by Criminal Court Judge Rebecca Stern to serve 60 years in connection with the child abuse death of his three-year-old son Jalen Ramsey. She tacked on an additional 20 years related to probation time he was facing. Tumlin still has drug charges to deal with.
A jury in June convicted Tumlin of criminally negligent homicide, aggravated child neglect and two counts of child abuse.
Prosecutor Charlie Minor said Tumlin was first arrested at age 13 on a burglary. "He has killed two people," he said. An earlier conviction was for vehicular homicide.
Stephanie Anders, probation officer, said Tumlin has 38 total convictions, including nine as a juvenile. He had eight prior felony convictions. He admitted during the trial that he is a drug dealer.
She said Tumlin said of the traffic death that "it was an accident." She said he told her on the charge involving his son, "I'm innocent. I always took care of my children."
Tumlin took the witness stand at the trial and said that he did not harm his young son, who died in early May 2010 with what hospital personnel said was a definite pattern of abuse.
"I love my son. Why would I kill him?" Tumlin testified.
Tumlin said rough play with other children may have caused the bruises. He said a second-degree burn on the child's leg was caused by Jaylen backing up to a space heater that was on low. He said he and his girlfriend, Shemeka Greer, smoke, but he said he was not responsible for what appeared to be a cigarette burn on Jaylen.
The defendant said he bites Jaylen and other children, but said he does not break the skin. "I have bitten my mother," he said.
It was testified that Tumlin has seven other children, though none are by Ms. Greer, his girlfriend since he was a young teen. The oldest child is seven. There are two sets of twins.
He said on the day prior to the child's death that he went out to make some drug deliveries while Ms. Greer was with Jaylen and some young cousins who were visiting.
The jury was given details of his extensive criminal record, including drug convictions and a five-year sentence in 2002 for vehicular homicide.
Tumlin said he normally had Jaylen two days a month, but he wound up keeping him for three weeks because the child's mother was in the process of moving. He said during that time he only talked to the mother twice.
He said he was assigned to potty train Jaylen. He said the child was to watch some of the other children, and he said he had a plastic potty chair. He said Jaylen had difficulty learning and he messed on himself the day prior to his death.
Tumlin said he was alone with Jaylen after Ms. Greer went to work that afternoon except when Cornell Watkins came over to watch one quarter of an NBA basketball game.
He said he did not normally bathe Jaylen, but he said he had seen some of the bruising. He said he felt it was something that would heal. He said Shemeka Greer had put some lotion of the heater burn. He said it was lotion she had left over for when she had suffered a burn.
He said Jaylen was a quiet child and was not one to cry. He said he sometimes would point to his stomach and say, "It hurts here." He said they took that to mean that he was hungry.
Tumlin said Jaylen watched TV in another room, while he watched the basketball game and played video games that day. He said after Ms. Greer came home from work that they heard a moan from Jaylen that they had never heard before. That was about 2 a.m. He said they did not go in to check on him, but hollered to him and he responded, "Huh."
He said a little while later that Jaylen made the same sound, and Ms. Greer went in to see how he was. She got him up and tried to feed him some rice with water, but it wouldn't go down.
Tumlin said Jaylen was having trouble breathing, but he was not concerned because some of his children have asthma problems.
He said it was decided to take Jaylen to the hospital, and his sister came over because their car was not working. He said he stayed at home and Ms. Greer first took the sister back to her house, then went to Children's Hospital. Jaylen was dead on arrival, and a doctor there said it appeared he had been dead for at least an hour.
Tumlin said he did not find out until the next day that Jaylen had died.
He said he then dodged police because he knew there were warrants on him for drugs and other charges and he was afraid he might be locked away in federal prison for an extensive time. He said he had a wig he used to help escape detection.