Sacramento County mother, boyfriend get 25 years to life for 5-year-old son’s death
A Sacramento Superior Court judge sentenced an Orangevale mother and her boyfriend each to 25 years to life in prison for the 2016 death of her 5-year-old son, who was beaten and submerged in a bathtub.
Judge Stephen Acquisto sentenced Jessica Prater, 37, and Adam Caldwell, 45, during a hearing in Superior Court Friday. Prater and Caldwell remained in custody Monday at the Sacramento County Jail awaiting transfer to prison.
A jury on Nov. 4 found Prater guilty of the first-degree murder by torture of her child, Zachary Prater-Stokes, the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office announced in a news release Monday. She was also found guilty of child assault causing death and child abuse with great bodily injury causing death.
On Oct. 8, a jury found Caldwell guilty of second-degree murder and child assault causing death, according to the news release.
Prater and her son moved into Caldwell’s home in April 2016. Soon after, Caldwell began punishing and abusing Zachary “psychologically and physically,” prosecutors said.
The physical abuse became more frequent and more violent, and Prater also inflicted abuse on her son, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
On June 2, 2016, Prater called 911 to report Zachary had swallowed water in the bathtub and was not responsive at their home in the 8700 block of Pershing Avenue. Prosecutors said medics from the Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District arrived and found the boy clothed and dry in a bedroom.
The child was taken to a hospital, but he never regained consciousness and died later. Prosecutors said medical evidence confirmed he had suffered “extensive abuse,” and the autopsy showed Zachary’s death was caused by “blunt force injuries and water submersion.”
Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office investigators arrested Prater and Caldwell on the day after the boy’s death.
This story was originally published December 13, 2021 at 12:04 PM.
