Adoptive Father Arrested In Pasco Toddler's Death
Adoptive Father Arrested In Pasco Toddler's Death
By LISA A. DAVIS | The Tampa Tribune
and TODD LESKANIC | The Tampa Tribune
Published: November 10, 2008
LAND O’ LAKES - After 18-month-old Ryanne Spohn died of a brain injury 19 months ago, her adoptive father, Jeff, maintained that the child fell from a safety gate and hit her head at her Wesley Chapel home in statements to Pasco investigators.
Today, Jeff Spohn was booked into the Land O' Lakes Jail on a first-degree murder warrant in the toddler's March 2007 death. Spohn, 33, who now lives in Ocala, was indicted last week by a Pasco grand jury.
The death is a result of shaken-baby syndrome, sheriff's office spokesman Kevin Doll said. The Hillsborough County Medical Examiner's Office determined over the summer that Ryanne's death was a homicide, Doll said.
"We originally investigated it as an accident," he said. "Medical evidence determined otherwise."
No one answered the phone at the Spohns' Ocala home this evening.
Court documents show that Spohn's account of what happened to Ryanne didn't match the child's injuries. Spohn told investigators that he was at the family's Millhopper Avenue home with Ryanne and her older sister, Macie, on March 2, 2007.
He said he had confined Ryanne behind the safety gate while he was helping Macie put her shoes on. Ryanne, who didn't like being confined, began to climb the gate but fell backwards and struck her head on the floor, Spohn told investigators.
Spohn also told detectives that he called 911 and began performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation on the child. Ryanne began having seizures and was taken to University Community Hospital, where she died.
Hillsborough County Associate Medical Examiner Leszek Chrostowski determined that Ryanne died of cerebral trauma, the result of a battering. Physician Randall Alexander, the statewide director of the Child Protection Team, found that the force needed to inflict Ryanne's injuries was not consistent with Spohn's account of what happened.
Shortly after the toddler died, a judge removed Ryanne's 3-year-old sister, Macie, from her parents' home and placed her in her grandmother's care. The state Department of Children & Families had allowed Jeff Spohn and his wife, Heather, supervised visits with Macie.