TODDLER'S FINAL BRUTAL HOURS BARED

FOSTER FATHER CHARGED IN BOY'S BEATING DEATH

Rocky Mountain News

Miguel Arias-Baca spent the last moments of his short life getting slammed against a floor.

His face was smeared with excrement.His body was bruised from earlier beatings.

At 2 1/2, Miguel died at the hands of a drunken foster father who returned from a Super Bowl party to find the toddler with a dirty diaper, according to an arrest affidavit filed Thursday in Adams County Court.

More than a month after Miguel's death, authorities on Thursday charged foster father Ricky Haney, 37, of Westminster with child abuse resulting in death.

Haney eventually admitted that he'd thrown the boy from a dresser, slammed his head repeatedly against the floor and smeared excrement on the boy's face as punishment for the potty-training accident, the affadavit said.

Haney, an unemployed handyman earning a living by taking in foster kids, was jailed Thursday. His bond was set at $100,000.

If he's convicted, Haney faces as few as four years in prison or as many as 48.

The affidavit says that for three days Haney told police his wife, Evon Haney, had beaten the boy.

But Evon, 31, was driving home a  baby sitter during the time Miguel was beaten.

Evon Haney's 14-year-old daughter helped break the case. The teen told police she heard a loud noise coming from the bathroom, followed by Miguel's cries.

The girl peered inside and saw Miguel sitting on the toilet with "poop on his face and he was crying," according to the affidavit.

Miguel, who'd lived in a string of motel rooms before being whisked away from a crack-addicted mother, died from massive head trauma two days later.

Westminster police began their investigation into the boy's death Feb. 1.

The affidavit reveals new details about Miguel's grim last days:

The Haneys initially told police Miguel's injuries came after he fell off the toilet. Doctors, though, found so many bruises on the boy that they didn't believe this story.

Dr. Andrew Sirotnak, a Children's Hospital child abuse expert, found old bruises on the boy's forehead, trunk, arms and legs. He also found two massive head injuries that appeared recent.

Within an hour of being taken to the hospital, Miguel was brain dead.

Early the next day, Ricky Haney started blaming his wife for the beating. When police told him Miguel would probably die, Haney began to cry, saying, "I didn't hit him. I didn't hit him."

When police began to focus on Ricky Haney as the key suspect, he insisted Miguel's death was an accident.

One afternoon, in between police interviews, officers found Haney in a parked minivan. He was swallowing Tylenol and washing them down with Nyquil. He was temporarily hospitalized for the overdose attempt.

A week after the beating, Haney sat for a long interview with police. Initially, he continued to blame his wife. When confronted with evidence, he screamed: "I didn't murder that baby like you're saying intentional murder, it was death by accident. I didn't mean to kill no baby."

He said he didn't remember details from that night because he'd been drinking.

Haney begged the cops not to put him in prison.

"I won't make it in prison. I'm too nervous," he said, offering to do volunteer work, or "work for kid's programs."

Scheduling conflicts between Westminster Police and Adams County District Attorney Bob Grant delayed the charges.

Thursday Grant and his staff spent 2 1/2 hours reviewing the case before deciding to charge Haney with child abuse resulting in death as opposed to first-degree murder.

To prove first-degree murder, prosecutors would have to establish that the boy's death was "intentional and deliberate." Proving child abuse resulting in death requires prosecutors to show that the incident was "knowing and reckless."

Miguel's death has highlighted problems in the foster care system in Adams County and the state.

Both the Haneys had arrest rec-ords and neither had driver's licenses.