ROY, Utah, Dec. 22, 2023 (Gephardt Daily) — A Roy man accused of killing a 2-year-old boy and seriously injuring the toddler’s twin sister repeatedly subjected the children to physical and sexual abuse leading up to his arrest, police said.
Jonathan Allen Dunn, 36, was arrested Thursday for investigation of aggravated murder, a first-degree felony; two counts of aggravated sexual abuse of a child, a first-degree felony; and aggravated child abuse, a second-degree felony.
Officers responded about 10 a.m. Thursday to a call from Dunn about an unresponsive 2-year-old boy in his care at a home near 4450 South and 1950 West, Roy City police said.
Officers arrived and found the toddler unconscious and not breathing on the front porch of the home, according to a probable cause statement filed in 2nd District Court. The boy had bruises all over his body and was taken to McKay-Dee Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, the affidavit says.
Police also found the boy’s twin sister sitting on a couch inside the home, “with several visible bruises to her face,” the responding officer’s report reads. She was taken to an area hospital to be treated for a brain bleed, police said.
Dunn later told police he had been “playing a game with the kids” Wednesday night that involved punching them “repeatedly in the back and sides and chest,” the affidavit says.
“[Dunn] stated that he was hitting them harder than he should have,” the officer’s account continues. “… [Dunn] then began to pinch the children repeatedly all over their body.”
Dunn described picking up the children one at a time and “throwing them on the bed while they cried,” the affidavit says, noting he threw them two or three times each.
He also admitted to shooting the toddlers with a Nerf gun and then using the butt of the toy gun to hit them in the head two or three times each, police said.
“This caused the children to fall to the ground,” the affidavit says, noting Dunn then picked up the toddlers “and pushed them into a closet door frame,” causing them to hit their heads and faces and their bodies “to go limp.”
Dunn also admitted to hitting both children on the back and top of their heads with a “hard foam” mallet, the affidavit says.
Dunn told police he provided them with Tylenol “because he knew they would have a headache,” the affidavit says. He also gave the boy children’s cough medicine and the girl a children’s sleep aid, police said.
The boy stopped breathing about 8:30 a.m. or 9 a.m. Thursday, Dunn told police.
“[Dunn] stated that he began CPR on the child,” the affidavit says, “however, it was later learned that [he] did not administer the life saving measures on the child.”
Dunn previously was convicted and sentenced to prison in 2017 for second-degree felony child abuse.
