MORGAN COUNTY, Mo. – The Stover couple behind bars for the beating death of two-year-old Blake Litton now face new charges of murder in the first degree.
Assistant Morgan County Prosecutor Douglas B. Kinde filed the charges on Tuesday, Nov. 15. Judge Kevin Schehr on Thursday set bond at $1,000,000.
Within hours of Blake Litton’s death on Feb. 16, 2012, Morgan County Prosecutor Dustin Dunklee charged Thomas “T.J.” Presley, 22, and Jamie Ann (Miller) Litton, 26, with second-degree murder and felony child endangerment. Presley and Litton have both been in jail since.
According to probable cause statements filed with the original charges of second-degree murder and child abuse, Blake Litton was alive, suffering from multiple injuries from a severe beating, when Presley drove him to Litton’s place of employment, the Golden Age Nursing Home in Stover, at approximately 5 a.m., Feb. 16. The mother did not seek medical care for her child at the nursing home and did not immediately call 911.
During an interview with law enforcement, Litton said she and Presley were crying in the parking lot, but Blake was “peaceful” in his booster seat. Litton said she screamed Blake’s name but he did not respond. She reported taking his pulse and getting a reading of 62, according to the probable cause statement. She would later tell investigators that she was unable to obtain a pulse and admitted the pulse she mentioned earlier might have been her own.
Prior to arriving at the her workplace, Litton said she had received a text message from Presley advising her that he “lost it” and Blake was in “bad shape.”
According to investigators, Litton said she told Presley to take the child to the emergency room, but Presley said he could not take him there because he would go to prison for the rest of his life.
During the interview, Litton told authorities that she tried to leave work by explaining that there was an issue with her son but was unable to leave the nursing home. She later admitted that she did not disclose the cause of the injuries to her son when asking to leave work.
Surveillance video from the nursing home shows a dark colored SUV pulled into the parking lot at about 5 a.m. and a person was walking around the vehicle. The SUV left the lot three minutes later. Litton told investigators she thought Presley was taking the child to the emergency room and returned to work.
Litton told investigators the next text message she received from Presley stated that Blake had been struck by a car.
Litton clocked out of work at 5:15 a.m., walked to the couple’s home, then went to the scene of where Presley had allegedly laid the child in the road to falsify an accident. There, Litton spoke with law enforcement, but did not mention the true nature of the child’s injuries.
Blake was pronounced dead at Bothwell Hospital in Sedalia. An autopsy on Feb. 16 indicated Blake died as a result of multiple injuries caused by a beating.
According to the probable cause statement, injuries found during the initial autopsy included a lacerated liver and ruptured blood vessel in his brain, visible bruises and lacerations to the head, neck, torso, buttocks, legs and arms.
In a forensic interview at Child Safe in Sedalia on Feb. 17, Blake’s three-year-old sister said she saw “T.J.” “punch” Blake in the mouth because he “pooped.” She then described Presley putting Blake into the bathtub and said he, “Hit him with the bathtub a lot.”
In Presley’s probable cause statement, investigators said he admitted to beating Blake at the residence. Investigators report that Presley said he became enraged with the child and struck him more times than he could remember with an open hand and kicked the child several times.
“I really beat him bad this time,” Presley reportedly said to investigators. Presley said he lost control and blacked out as he beat the child, but later placed the toddler in bed and thought he was going to be fine. However, 30 minutes later, Presley said he heard a loud noise in the kitchen and found the child unresponsive on the floor. At that point, Presley said he knew the child was severely injured and appeared to be gasping for breath as his eyes rolled back in his head.
Presley told investigators he thought the child was paralyzed.
At this point, Presley loaded Blake and his three-year-old sister into an SUV and drove them to Litton at the nursing home.
Presley said he left the nursing home and started to drive to Sedalia to seek medical attention for the child. En route, Presley said he realized the child was deceased and instead called EMS and falsified the hit-and-run story.
A forensic nursing team examined Blake’s sister at Lake Regional Hospital in Osage Beach, Mo. The team reported a broken wrist and bruising discovered on her head, torso, legs, buttocks and arms. The medical team also found a patch of hair stubble or re-growth visible from a healing hemotoma (a mass of clotted blood that forms in a tissue or organ as a result of a broken blood vessel). The child’s liver enzymes also were elevated indicating a blunt injury to the liver. Some of the injuries were weeks old.
During the examination, the child indicated to medical personnel that “daddy” caused the injuries.
Morgan County Sheriff Jim Petty said he knew of previous calls to the Division of Family Services regarding the family in the past and that Litton had two additional children no longer in her custody.
Litton’s adoptive parents, Jim and LaVera Miller, said Jamie married her first husband at age 18 and soon after gave birth to two girls – 16 months apart. The marriage did not last long.
Shortly after the divorce, Litton married again as a custody battle ensued.
“They were fighting over custody a lot and one of them would call DFS (Division of Family Services) on the other,” LaVera Miller said. “They did that back and forth, each one accusing the other of abuse.”
Eventually, the two girls ended up with their paternal great-grandparents, the Millers said.
Litton gave birth to Blake and his younger sister while with her second husband and would retain custody after another divorce.
The Millers said everything was seemingly okay until April 2011, when Litton started dating Presley.
Although her parents said they never witnessed any abuse, they had strong suspicions something was not right. They based their suspicions on how the children acted toward Presley.
“They didn’t want to be around him,” Jim Miller said. “They were living in our basement and the children spent as much time up here with us as they could… When it was time for them to go downstairs, neither of them wanted to.”
Both Jim and LaVera said they watched for injuries on the children but found nothing.
Weeks before Blake died, Litton and Presley moved out of the family home.
“To our knowledge, they were staying with (Presley's) mom in Ivy Bend,” Jim said. The Millers said they last saw the children in early January.
“LaVera finally had the chance to speak with Blake the day before he died,” Jim Miller said.
In a brief telephone conversation, LaVera said Blake told her that he was excited because they were moving into a new home and he was ready to start attending school.
“That was the last time I spoke to him,” she said.
