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Autopsy shows boy beaten to death; adoptive mother charged with slaying

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By The Associated Press

A Bacon County woman charged with murdering her 3-year-old adopted son, then dumping his body in the woods and reporting a fake kidnapping, beat the child to death, according to preliminary autopsy results.

Ahmad King died from "multiple blunt force injuries," the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said in a news release. Authorities found his body Friday covered in straw on a tree farm in Appling County, about 15 miles from his South Georgia home just east of Alma.

The GBI has said Mary Jane King, who adopted Ahmad last year, confessed to his slaying, but only after first reporting him kidnapped from the parking lot of a Wal-Mart in Jesup on Jan. 24.

King, 34, has been charged with felony murder and concealing a death. To convict King of felony murder, meaning a death caused during the commission of another felony, prosecutors won't have to prove King meant to kill her adopted son.

"We would allege in the indictment an act of cruelty to a child took place ... that caused the child's death without ever necessarily intending the death," said Rick Curry, district attorney for the Waycross Judicial Circuit that includes Bacon County.

Curry said he could not comment on whether the autopsy indicated Ahmad was beaten with a weapon. Jeff Evans, special agent in charge of the GBI's Douglas office, could not immediately be reached for comment.

John R. Thigpen Sr., King's defense attorney, declined to comment on the case.

2006 Jan 31