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Mother, girlfriend arrested on capital murder charges after 4-year-old boy’s death in Fort Worth

Stetson Blackburn suffered traumatic injuries after being kicked in the stomach, police said.

A Fort Worth woman and her girlfriend were arrested Friday on capital murder charges following the death of a 4-year-old boy from blunt force injuries earlier this year.

Shannon Lynn Gray, 23, the mother of Stetson Blackburn, was taken into custody in central Tennessee, while Reyna Marie Sanchez, 24, was apprehended by the Fort Worth Police Department’s fugitive unit.

Police said they were called about 4:30 p.m. March 19 to a trailer home in the 3300 block of Bonaventure Boulevard South, near Forest Hill Drive in south Fort Worth, where a child wasn’t breathing.

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Stetson was taken to Cook Children’s Medical Center and pronounced dead two days later. Doctors said he suffered acute respiratory failure, cardiac arrest, a subdural hematoma and a traumatic brain injury.

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According to police, Sanchez said she had put the boy and his 3-year-old brother down for a nap around 3:30 p.m. and that Stetson began gasping for air two minutes later, with blood, vomit and food coming out of his nose and mouth.

She said she put him in the shower and began performing CPR when he became unresponsive and then called Gray at work, police said. The pair called 911 after Gray returned home, police said.

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Police said the department’s crimes against children unit performed an “exhaustive” investigation of what led up to the boy’s death, searching the home twice, obtaining cellphone and social-media records and interviewing first responders, health care workers, Child Protective Services, the two women, their families and friends.

Sanchez eventually admitted that she had kicked Stetson in the stomach as hard as she could three times the night before he was hospitalized because he wasn’t drying off completely after taking a shower, hurting her big toe, police said. She also admitted to physically abusing the boy in the past, including lifting him off the ground by his neck, hitting him with “whatever object was nearby” and making him take cold showers, an arrest-warrant affidavit says.

Gray told police she had given Stetson a “whooping” for lying, the affidavit says, spanking him dozens of times and hitting his head with a belt. Sanchez had told her she didn’t discipline the boy hard enough, she said.

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In early July, the Tarrant County medical examiner’s office ruled Stetson’s death a homicide due to blunt force injures with complications. Police obtained murder warrants for Gray and Sanchez on Monday.

It was unclear whether either woman had an attorney Friday. Sanchez was being held in the Tarrant County jail, while Gray remained in custody in Hickman County, Tenn.

Police said several of Stetson’s organs were donated after his death.