A North Carolina man who served time 10 years ago for shaking his baby so violently that he caused permanent damage to the child is once again in custody for harming one of his children.
Sterling Cummings, 33, was arrested Monday and charged in the death of his three-month-old son Waylon on May 20.
The boy’s mother left the child in his father’s care when she left to buy groceries. When she returned, the boy had not been given the bottle she prepared and was not breathing.
After receiving CPR from a neighbor, Waylon was taken to the hospital with retinal hemorrhaging, according to doctors. An MRI showed abnormalities.
Waylon died as a result of his injuries, and after receiving what they determined were inconsistent statements from Sterling Cummings, police called the events around Waylon’s death “suspicious” and ruled it a homicide.
Waylon is not the first child in Sterling’s care to suffer irreparable damage.
In August 2012, Cummings’s three-week-old son Andy was taken to the hospital after being shaken by Cummings. Andy was left blind and suffering from cerebral palsy due to the permanent brain damage he suffered from the shaking.
Tracy Trepcyk, who adopted Andy and one of Cummings’s other children, attended his first court appearance Tuesday alongside her husband Allan.
“We tried to tell everybody that he was going to do this again,” Tracy said, according to Fox 45 News. “I’m just hoping that, under this circumstance, that they get this right.”
Back in 2013, Cummings pleaded guilty to felony child abuse inflicting serious injury. His sentence was 20 days in jail and 60 months of supervised probation.
“I’ll never be able to wrap my arms around it,” Allan said. “I just know that he is a dangerous individual and he needs to be put away.”
“You will answer to a higher power when your day comes, and I hope you rot,” Tracy added.
In the death of Waylon, Cummings has been charged with first-degree murder and felony child abuse. He also has pending charges of assault on a female in an incident that occurred last year, according to court documents.
He is being held without bond.
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