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Mother's boyfriend charged in child's death

• An Albany man accused of killing a 3-year-old is being charged with felony murder, warrants filed Monday show.

Joshua Brown

ALBANY — The District Attorney’s office filed new charges Monday against the man accused of beating to death a 3-year-old boy over the weekend, who they say beat the child so badly that his liver was ruptured.

Warrants were taken Monday for Vincent Soilberry, 18, the boyfriend of Shondarius Roney’s mother, for felony murder, first degree cruelty to a child, aggravated battery and aggravated assault.

According to the warrants, Soilberry “did cause serious bodily injury by causing rib fractures and a ruptured liver” to Roney at a home on the 2200 block of South Jackson Street around 10 a.m. Friday. Soilberry was arrested on an unrelated criminal trespassing warrant late Friday.

Monday’s warrants state that Soilberry hit the child with a closed fist, causing “cruel and excessive physical pain,” and his eventual death.

Chief Assistant District Attorney Greg Edwards declined to say Monday the specific cause of death for the child, but generically categorized it as “death by bodily injury.”

Edwards didn’t reveal many of the details of the killing because he said he wanted to safeguard the information until it could go before a grand jury and eventually to trial.

“We must preserve the matter until it goes before the appropriate tribunal,” he said.

Edwards did confirm that Roney was under Soilberry’s care when the abuse occurred, but would not say whether there was a pattern of abuse against the child.

Initial police reports indicate that Soilberry called the incident in as a potential drowning. Soilberry told police that he was giving Roney a bath when he had to clean up a mess in another part of the apartment and when he returned, he found the child struggling for breath.

Emergency medical workers took Roney to Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital, where he later died. The child had bruises all over his body, the report indicates.

Soilberry was being held only on the criminal trespassing charge Monday evening, a jailer said.

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