Police and medics responding to a 911 call at a Newport News apartment last week found a 5-year-old boy — motionless and unresponsive — on his bedroom floor.
He was flown to a Norfolk hospital but died four hours later.The boy “was covered in bruises over the entirety of his body,” court documents said. He was beaten so badly that nearly a third of his body’s blood had pooled in his abdominal cavity.
The child’s mother, Katrina Marie Sudberry, 27, initially told police that she alone disciplined the boy, court documents said. But she changed her story after being charged with second-degree murder and child abuse.
Her live-in boyfriend, Gregory Glenn Martin, 30, now also is facing second-degree murder and child abuse charges. They both face up to 50 years behind bars if convicted.
Court documents filed in Newport News Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court provide a detailed account of the series of events.
Just after 2 p.m. last Thursday, police were called to an apartment on Walden Pond Court, off Beechmont Drive in Denbigh, for a report of an unresponsive 5-year-old boy.
Police and medics found Sudberry “screaming and crying in a back bedroom,” and the boy motionless on the floor in only his underwear, according to an affidavit by police detective S.J. Heusterberg.
As medics began CPR, they noticed that the boy, identified in court documents only as “J.H.,” had bruises all over his body.
He was taken by ambulance to Riverside Regional Medical Center at 3:21 p.m., then flown to Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters in Norfolk, where he died at 6:30 p.m.
Detectives and Child Protective Services interviewed Sudberry. She told detectives the boy was lethargic and vomiting that morning, and that she monitored him as she did housework and he lay in bed.
“She said when she last checked on him she found him unresponsive on the floor of his bedroom,” the affidavit said. She called her mother, and her mother told her to call 911.
When Heusterberg asked Sudberry why she didn’t seek help for the boy sooner, she referenced the deep bruising and said she “knew how it would look,” the affidavit said.
Sudberry told the detectives that she disciplined the boy with her hands and a belt, as well as forced him to do “push ups and wall squats,” Heursterberg wrote.
The last time she used the belt, she said, had been two days earlier.
“She also said she was the only one to watch and have custody of J.H. in the past three weeks,” the affidavit said.
On July 17, the State Medical Examiner’s Office determined that J.H. “suffered catastrophic injuries to organs within the abdominal cavity” and died of blunt force trauma.
Many bruises “had linear patterns consistent with a belt and belt buckle,” while other injuries appeared to be inflicted by a hand. A belt and a detached buckle were collected at the scene.
Sudberry was arrested July 18 and charged with second-degree murder and felony child neglect.
After being charged, the affidavit said, she told police that her live-in boyfriend, Martin, would often watch the boy when she was at work.
Martin is not the boy’s father, though the affidavit said Sudberry is now pregnant with Martin’s child.
Sudberry told police she left for work at Amazon in the morning of July 16, returning home at about 11 a.m. That’s when she noted the metal buckle had come off the belt that the couple used to discipline J.H.
Police searched Sudberry’s phone, finding a July 7 conversation in which the couple discussed the beatings. Sudberry sent him pictures and complained of new bruises when “we tryna get rid of the other ones.”
“We needa make an agreement either u gone let me whoop him or not,” Martin replied, according to the affidavit. That led Sudberry to keep persisting.
“Trina, I’m not gone whoop him again,” Martin replied, saying he will leave that to her from now on. “I’ll keep it strictly workouts but he not scared of the workouts.”
Police said some injuries found at autopsy were consistent with the July 7 pictures Sudberry sent to Martin.
Martin was arrested Monday on the murder and child abuse counts.
He was also charged with failing to register as a convicted sex offender. That came after he pleaded guilty in 2018 to having carnal knowledge with a minor who was 13, the Virginia Sex Offender Registry shows Martin’s address as downtown Newport News, not in the Denbigh area apartment where police say he was living with Sudberry and the boy.
Martin and Sudberry are being held at the Newport News City Jail, with court dates scheduled for Sept. 9.
Peter Dujardin, 757-897-2062, pdujardin@dailypress.com