DETROIT (WWJ) -– A Detroit man has been sentenced to up to 50 years in prison for murdering an infant girl while he was babysitting her back in 2022.
Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Wanda Evans on Monday ordered Leroy Metoyer III to serve 25 years to 50 years for Second-Degree Murder, and 15 years to 30 years for First Degree Child Abuse, with those sentences running concurrently in the Michigan Department of Corrections.
Prosecutors said Metoyer, who was 37 at the time of the crime, was babysitting 1-year-old Justice Starks at home on Lancashire Street in Detroit in Nov. 29, 2022.
Metoyer was caring for the infant for a friend, officials said, when he fatally assaulted the child. Medics were called to the home and took the baby to a hospital, where she died two days later.
The Wayne County Medical Examiner later determined that the child's cause of death was “multiple blunt force trauma to the head,” according to the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office.
Shortly after a jury trial in the case began last month, Metoyer ended it by pleading guilty.
Family members who spoke during the sentencing said Justice was dearly loved her parents and extended family, and delighted them with her smile. She was playful and mischievous, loved dancing, going for walks, and watching Cocomelon.
Metoyer declined to speak at his sentencing, but a report by Fox 2 said he cried in the courtroom.
Judge Evans credited him with 899 days for time already served.