(Michigan City, IN) - A murder charge has been filed in what turned out to be a beating death of a five year Michigan City boy found unresponsive in his home.

 

Brice Bainum, 32, is being held in the La Porte County Jail on $1 million bond pending his March 11th arraignment in La Porte Superior Court 1 on charges of Murder and Class A misdemeanor Interference with Reporting a Crime.

 

The boy’s mother, Haile Lewis, 23, was being held in the La Porte County Jail on a 48 hour hold while prosecutors decide potential charges against her for the death.

 

According to court documents, Bainum was the live-in boyfriend of Lewis, who found the boy unresponsive on the floor of his bedroom on the morning of March 2nd at Normandy Village Apartments.  Police said Lewis told investigators Bainum, who felt the boy was being disrespectful, made him take a cold shower for about 15 minutes the previous night and keep apologizing, which he was made to do for about one hour.

 

According to court documents, Lewis told police she later found the boy looking scared and crying in the bathroom with Bainum yelling at the child. She said the boy appeared to have been struck “really hard” and Bainum told her the child bit him on the arm hard enough to leave a bite mark, according to court documents.  Lewis informed police she told Bainum to stop hitting the child and he responded defiantly, saying “he is not going to bite me,” court records disclosed.

 

According to police, Lewis said she was in the bathroom later when she heard a noise that seemed to come from her son's bedroom.  Court documents also revealed a neighbor living above the apartment told police she heard a faucet running inside their home and the voice of a “little boy” saying “no, please stop.  I will be a good boy.”

 

The woman said she also heard what sounded like someone “thrashing in the water” then silence until an ambulance arrived roughly one hour later, according to police.

 

Police said the woman told investigators she found the boy unresponsive after going into his bedroom to check on him and went to call 911, but Bainum grabbed the phone out of her hand. More than one hour passed before he allowed her to call for help, according to court documents.

 

Police said the boy was airlifted from Franciscan Health to Comer Children’s Hospital in Chicago where he was pronounced dead that evening.

 

According to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office, the boy’s cause of death was listed as multiple injuries such as bleeding on the brain due to assault, a homicide. The autopsy also found contusions on the child’s scalp from multiple impacts on the head along with bruises and abrasions on his upper and lower extremities, court documents showed.

 

Lewis told police Brainum gave the child hot sauce at times when he cried and became jealous whenever she showed too much affection toward her son. She also described him as abusive in their relationship together and accused him of isolating her from her family, police said.

 

Bainum was being held in the La Porte County Jail on $1 million bond.

 

He could face a 45 to 65 year sentence.