An Aiken man was sentenced to 30 years in prison Thursday after a jury found him guilty in the 2013 beating death of his girlfriend's 2-year-old son.
A jury Wednesday found 29-year-old Ivory James Blackshire guilty of homicide by child abuse in the death of 2-year-old Caleb Walker after about 90 minutes of deliberating, but Circuit Court Judge Doyet "Jack" Early delayed sentencing to Thursday.
Blackshire faced up to life in prison, and state law requires a sentence of at least 20 years.
Caleb was found unresponsive on the couch of his mother's Dallas Circle home the afternoon of Aug. 29, 2013. The mother's boyfriend, Blackshire, called 911 after the boy wouldn't wake up.
He was taken to Aiken Regional Medical Centers, then to Georgia Regents Medical Center, where he was declared brain dead and later taken off life support.
Caleb died of a subdural hematoma, a pathologist testified.
Blackshire maintained that he never spanked or struck the 2-year-old or his brother, and that he believes Caleb hit his head on an end table when he was shaking the boy in an attempt to wake him.
One physician testified that the force required to inflict such an injury on a child is similar to that generated by a child being thrown from a vehicle collision and striking a tree.
Blackshire shuffled into court Thursday wearing an orange jumpsuit and shackles, a sharp contrast to the suit and bow tie he'd worn throughout the trial. He said nothing during the hearing, except to ask Early for mercy in sentencing.
Blackshire's niece, Ashley Jackson, also asked for leniency.
"I don't know what to say. I know my uncle is innocent," she said, her voice starting to crack with tears. "He would never, ever have done this to a child. ... I don't know what happened that day. Only he and God know. I really don't believe in my heart that he did this."
Blackshire's aunt, Savunya Jackson, said he's never been violent toward a child.
"I know this for a fact," she said. "We can't forget the fact that a child is lost here. We can't forget the fact that a mother's lost her child. Whatever happened that day was not done in malice. It was not done in an evil place."
Early, too, said he didn't think Blackshire killed Caleb out of malice.
"These are the most difficult cases the system has to deal with," Early said. "The end result is, we have a child, 2 years of age, who died a violent death."
Assistant Solicitor Ashley Hammack, who prosecuted the case along with Assistant Solicitor Sam Grimes, said no one really wins in cases like this.
"Nothing we do is going to bring that 2-year-old back, but at the end of the day, we've got to hold people accountable for what they do," she said. "I can't commend the Sheriff's Office enough for the work they put into this case. They spent their nights and weekends working on this case making sure they thoroughly investigated this and collected all the possible evidence that could be obtained to make sure the truth was determined and that somebody could speak for Caleb."
Teddy Kulmala covers the crime and courts beat for the Aiken Standard and has been with the newspaper since August 2012.
