Background: The Oregon Health & Science University”s Doernbecher Children’s Hospital in Portland, Oregon where the child victim was brought (Google Maps). Inset: Emerson Cromwell (Lincoln County District Attorney’s Office).
An Oregon man’s fate has been all but sealed after he beat and killed his toddler in apparent frustration over a failed business venture.
Emerson Cromwell, 27, was sentenced on Tuesday to life in prison “for causing the death of his 15-month-old daughter,” the Lincoln County District Attorney’s Office announced. He was convicted by a jury roughly a month earlier of second-degree murder, first- and second-degree assault, and first-degree manslaughter after a nearly-monthlong trial.
It was Aug. 9, 2022, when Cromwell called 911 to report that his daughter was unconscious and non-responsive. The since-convicted defendant said his child was “fine before crawling towards him and collapsing in his arms,” and he picked her up and “shook her one time to revive her.”
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Investigators would learn that there was much more to the story than Cromwell initially let on.
“Messaging data from earlier in the day showed that Cromwell had become frustrated with feeding his daughter and had also received some bad news regarding a clothing business venture,” according to the DA’s office. Soon after, he texted the girl’s mother to tell her that “something was wrong with the child.” Then he called 911.
First responders and law enforcement officers arrived at his home in Lincoln City, Oregon, and found the victim. She was brought to an area hospital where staff there learned she had a brain bleed. She was subsequently airlifted to Oregon Health & Science University’s Doernbecher Children’s Hospital in Portland, about 100 miles northeast.
The child would be dead by the following morning.
“It was a violent, horrible death that she did not have to suffer, and it was at the hands of her father,” Lincoln County Circuit Court Judge Sheryl Bachart said during the sentencing hearing, adding that Cromwell was “ill-equipped to be a father.”
Investigators learned that Cromwell “began spanking his daughter when she was merely 5 months old and would often take the child into her room and beat her causing bruises that lasted days.” This evidence was presented at the jury trial, as well as the discovery that the child was “often left home alone.”
Prosecutors also spoke with medical experts during the trial that “all concluded that the only explanation for the child’s severe brain damage was child abuse trauma.”
Cromwell will be eligible for parole after 25 years in prison.
