A jury in Mississippi has given the punishment of death to a man from Gulfport for murdering his stepson who was a toddler in December 2021.
The jury only needed less than 60 minutes to declare 41-year-old Joseph David Heard guilty in the killing of 2-year-old Hayden Lee Bataille, and then an additional two hours to decide to give him the punishment of death, as reported by the Biloxi Sun Herald. the Biloxi Sun Herald reported.
“God have mercy on your soul,” Judge Larry Bourgeois told the defendant after the sentence was pronounced.
Heard and his wife, Hailey Leann Heard, 24, were arrested in January 2022 after the boy was found unresponsive on December 27, 2021, WLOX reported. Hailey Heard, the child’s mother, called 911 at 6 a.m. and told dispatchers the boy may have drowned in the bathtub. He was taken to a hospital and later pronounced dead.
Originally, the couple was charged with felony child abuse, but when doctors discovered that the child had multiple bruises all over his body and a broken bone consistent with abuse, the charges were elevated to capital murder.
During the trial, an investigator stated that Hailey Heard confessed to detectives that her husband held the boy by her arms in one hand while hitting him repeatedly with the other hand. She also admitted to covering the child’s mouth to silence his cries.
When she testified herself on Friday, the boy’s mother revealed that before she called 911, the toddler had soiled his diaper and taken too long to get a juice box from the kitchen. The stepfather — who admitted during trial he had a temper — picked up the boy and beat him on the head and chest, she said.
“He was a two-year-old punished for soiling a diaper and crying,” said Assistant District Attorney George Huffman. “He was beaten for being a child.”
But testimony during the trial showed that Heard’s mistreatment of the boy was consistent. In the months leading up to his death, Heard would make the boy sit on his potty-training seat for hours, popped open blisters on his hand with a spatula, and boasted about beating the boy in text messages to his mother.
“A child should be loved and supported by his parents,” stated District Attorney W. Crosby Parker. “Two-year-old Hayden Bataille was beaten and killed for acting like a normal two-year-old. The brutal and terrible killing of Hayden warranted the most severe punishment under Mississippi law. We commend the Harrison County jury for concurring with us.”
Hailey Heard admitted guilt to a reduced charge of first-degree murder and consented to testify against her husband. She received a life sentence in prison.
[Featured image: Joseph David Heard and Hailey Leann Heard/Harrison County Sheriff’s Office]