A northeast Texas jury has sentenced a Texarkana, Texas, man to life imprisonment for murder in the fatal beating of a 2-year-old neighbor boy.
The Bowie County jury gave 33-year-old Jimmy Paul Mahone the maximum sentence on Friday, one day after finding him guilty of murder in the death of Dalton Wayne Slaton.
A medical examiner determined the boy had a skull fracture and numerous other broken bones.
Prosecutors told jurors that Mahone apparently had picked the boy up by his leg and swung him repeatedly into the hard back of a sofa in his apartment. According to the Texarkana Gazette, witnesses testified that Mahone appeared to be obsessed with the child.
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