10-year-old Florida boy charged with manslaughter in death of 2-year-old cousin

Journee Blyden

A 10-year-old Florida boy beat his 2-year-old cousin until she suffered severe head trauma and died three days later, police said. Medical examiners in Marion County, roughly 100 miles north of Orlando, ruled the June death of Journee Blyden a homicide, WFTV reported shortly after her death. Witnesses had initially said Journee fell out of her playpen, according to the Marion County Sheriff’s Office. Yet another little girl later told investigators the as-yet-unidentified 10-year-old boy physically abused her and Journee when the three were unsupervised, deputies said.
“After a thorough investigation and an interview of the witnesses involved, detectives determined that the 10-year-old caused the 2-year-old’s extensive and ultimately fatal injuries,” officials in the sheriff’s office said in a statement. The boy told deputies he was running while carrying Journee and fell on the kitchen floor at her family’s Silver Springs Shores home June 21. He said he had also placed Journee on a counter then “accidentally” pushed her off of it, according to the sheriff’s office. Journee’s sustained injuries so severe an emergency crew had to airlift her from Ocala Regional Medical Center to University of Florida Health in Gainesville, investigators said. She died June 24.
Medical examiners concluded that the boy’s account did not square with Journee’s trauma, according to the sheriff’s office. Coroners ruled her injuries “would have taken excessive force to create,” deputies said. The 10-year-old boy was arrested and booked on charges of aggravated manslaughter of a child. He was incarcerated in juvenile detention ahead of his first court appearance Thursday. Journee's father, Kendall Blyden, was behind bars at the time of her death on murder and aggravated child abuse charges, the Orlando Sentinel reported. He had been arrested in October 2014 in connection with the death of his girlfriend's 1-year-old son.