Robert Azure
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Around July 2008, Donald Hayes moved in with Robert’s mother and her four children. At the time of the murder, the children were ten, six, two and Robert, the youngest was 13 months old. After moving in Hayes was not employed, so he took care of the children most of the time while Robert’s mother worked 25 to 30 hours a week at a local fast food restaurant.

 

On the morning of September 24, 2008, Robert’s mother woke up, put on her uniform, and walked to work. She had her uniform hanging on a chair in the living room, where she left it to dry after washing it the night before. She did not have a dryer in the house, so she used a box fan to dry her uniform overnight. Hayes remained at home to take care of the children. He took the two younger children to a local animal shelter to look at puppies. While at the shelter Robert appeared healthy and petted the puppies during the visit. One of the children said when she returned from school Robert was crying, and that Hayes was swearing at him, using “the ‘b’ word and the ‘f’ word.” He put Robert inside of his playpen in the bedroom. Robert started to cry again. Hayes went in the bedroom and grabbed Robert and he didn't see the fan cord and he tripped and fell right on top of him. After the fall Hayes put Robert on the couch. Hayes, by this point hysterical and crying, called Robert’s mother at work and told her something was wrong with the baby. She clocked out and ran home. When she arrived, she found Robert on the couch, with Hayes standing near him. She picked Robert up and found that his body was limp, his breathing was shallow and rough, and his eyes were closed and fluttering. She called 911.

 

Police arrived within minutes, with the ambulance arriving about a minute after. Officer Mortenson opened Robert's eyes and shined a light into them, but found that his pupils were “the size of a pinhead” and unresponsive. The ambulance took Robert and his mother to the hospital, leaving Officer Mortenson and Hayes at the scene. After the ambulance left, Hayes allowed Officer Mortenson inside the house and showed him where he claimed to have tripped and fallen while carrying Robert. Hayes told the officer that he had tripped over either the fan or the fan's cord he wasn't sure which. Officer Mortenson examined the area where Hayes said Robert had landed, but did not see any blood, hair, or other evidence on the floor. Officer Mortenson spent only a few minutes at the scene before leaving for the hospital, and did not further question Hayes, who was crying and upset. Mortenson did observe, however, that there was a broken box fan lying flat on the floor in the living room, and that it had a cord, although he could not remember whether the cord was attached to the wall or to the fan itself.

 

By the time Robert reached the Redwood Area Hospital emergency room, he was registering a 5 or 6 on the Glasgow coma scale, indicating a severe head injury. A CT scan revealed that Robert had suffered skull fractures and subdural hematomas. Within the first 24 hours, it was apparent to the doctors at Minneapolis Children's Hospital that they would not be able to save Robert's life. The doctors told Robert’s mother that it was very unlikely that Robert would survive, and that even if he did, he would have virtually no brain function. With no hope for improvement, Robert’s mother made the difficult decision to  withdraw  life support, and Robert died on October 1, 2008.

 

On October 2, an autopsy on Robert. Was performed and found that Robert had suffered a large stellate fracture which was a star shaped fracture radiating outward centered on the back of his skull. He also found three other bruises on Robert's head, old fractures in both bones in his left arm, one of which had gone untreated fractures to his ribs, extensive hemorrhaging in his eyes, and a tear in his frenulum. But it was some combination of traumatic and hypoxic injury to his brain that actually caused Robert's death. Many of Robert's injuries were suspicious, the fact that there were four injuries to his head did not match up with the story described by Hayes could not account for Robert's injuries. Robert's injuries were consistent to a child of Robert's age falling out of a second or third-story window and having an “old style” television fall on his head.

 

Donald Hayes was found guilty of first degree murder and spend the rest of his life in jail.

 

http://caselaw.findlaw.com/mn-supreme-court/1633133.html