Suspect in boy's death returned to city

Jeff Coen

Chicago Tribune

A Chicago man who allegedly fled to Milwaukee this year after his girlfriend's foster child was fatally injured appeared in Bond Court Thursday to face murder charges.

Michael Thorpe, 31, is accused of beating 9-month-old Walter Jackson while baby-sitting him Aug. 7. He was extradited from Milwaukee on Tuesday, prosecutors said, and was ordered held without bond by Cook County Criminal Judge Thomas Hennelly.

Assistant State's Atty. Maria McCarthy said the child's foster mother left the boy with Thorpe in a Chicago Lawn apartment the couple shared in the 6100 block of South Campbell Avenue.

The foster mother called home to check on Walter three times, McCarthy said, once waking the child, who would not stop crying.

After Thorpe was arrested Nov. 15, he allegedly told investigators he struck the boy twice because he felt "stuck" with him and could not go outside.

"The second time the baby began grunting, and he knew at that point that he had hurt the baby," McCarthy told the judge.

When the baby's foster mother returned home, 911 was called when the baby went into a seizure, McCarthy said. The child died two days later, prosecutors said, and an autopsy showed he had suffered multiple skull fractures and a subdural hematoma.

Investigators began looking for Thorpe, McCarthy said, and found a witness who said Thorpe had bought a bus ticket to Milwaukee from Chicago under a different name.

He is to return to court Jan. 18.