Tacoma man gets new sentence for 15-month-old’s death
A man convicted for the death of his girlfriend’s 15-month-old son has been resentenced following an appellate decision.
Dedric Lamar Greer, 35, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for killing Sayvon Jordan Jr.
Charging papers said the child had been dead for some time when Greer and the mother took him to Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital in July 2015. Rigor mortis had set in.
Greer was originally sentenced to more than 21 years in prison by Pierce County Superior Court Judge Stanley Rumbaugh. The state Court of Appeals found that there was a mistake in how that sentence accounted for a prior, out-of-state conviction Greer had.
Superior Court Judge Stephanie Arend resentenced him Friday to 15 years in prison.
Charging papers said other children told detectives Greer had held the toddler by the neck, tossed him onto a bed and pushed his fists into the boy’s stomach, calling him, “stupid baby.”
At one point Greer allegedly told police that he’d given the child the Heimlich maneuver after he swallowed a rock.
Investigators found injuries that indicated weeks of trauma.
Greer told the court at his first sentencing: “I’m sorry. I never meant for this to happen.”
Loved ones wrote the court after Sayvon’s death that the toddler smiled a lot and liked to cuddle. They couldn’t understand, they said, why someone would hurt him.
This story was originally published December 11, 2019 at 6:15 AM.
