Will Roseville dad accused of murdering his 9-year-old son stand trial? Placer judge to decide
A Placer Superior Court judge is expected to announce next week whether a father accused of murder and torture of his 9-year-old adopted son should face any criminal charges in the child’s death.
Cory Albert Blakley, 38, and Kimberly Rachel Blakley, 38, were the adoptive parents of the boy who has been identified by his family as Cyrus Blakley. His parents are accused of murder, torture and child abuse that contributed to his death in February.
The Blakleys remain in custody at the Placer County Jail. On June 21, about five months after the married couple was arrested, Cory Blakley filed a petition in court seeking a divorce from his wife. That case in family court is scheduled for a hearing Dec. 27.
After testimony and evidence was presented in an April preliminary hearing, Judge Jeffrey Penney ordered the Blakleys to stand trial on the murder, torture and child abuse charges, along with felony charges of dissuading witnesses. The prosecutors allege the parents told the children not to speak truthfully to investigators. The Blakleys also face misdemeanor charges of child endangerment.
But Cory Blakley believes he shouldn’t face any charges in son’s death and is asking Judge Angus Saint-Evens to overturn Penny’s ruling, telling the court that it’s his wife who is solely responsible for the boy’s death. Saint-Evens heard arguments in court July 24 and is scheduled to announce his ruling Aug. 23.
Prosecutors allege that the mother sat on her adopted 9-year-old son and beat him continuously for about 40 minutes as the boy’s father did nothing to stop it.
Barry Zimmerman, the father’s defense attorney, argued that prosecutors suggesting that the child’s death wouldn’t have happened had Cory Blakley intervened is “pure speculation.”
“Kimberly’s actions are the proximate cause of the child’s death,” Zimmerman wrote in a filed motion asking for the father’s charges to be dismissed. “Cory Blakley’s failure to call 911 or otherwise intervene is insufficient to hold him to answer for murder.”
The Placer County District Attorney’s Office argues that both parents were responsible for the boy’s death and the pain he suffered. In the April preliminary hearing, Deputy District Attorney Andrew Braden, one of the prosecutors in the murder case, told Judge Penny that the boy’s mother tortured her son by sitting on the child, depriving him of oxygen and “continually beating” him.
Child’s cause of death
Cyrus Blakley, who is identified in court documents as “CyB” or “CB,” died of “mechanical asphyxiation;” he suffocated to death, Chief Deputy District Attorney Jennifer Ow argued in filed court documents opposing the father’s motion for dismissal.
Kimberly Blakley stood 5-feet-7 and weighed 200 pounds when she sat on her son and repeatedly spanked him as he suffocated, according to the prosecution. The boy was 4-foot-5 and weighed 83 pounds.
The prosecutor said Ring-brand cameras installed inside the family’s Roseville home recorded sounds of the mother “striking” the child and the boy’s “repeated apologies, gasps for breath and cries that he could not breathe, followed by silence.” Ow said a camera in the kitchen clearly recorded audio of what was happening in the living room.
At that time, Cory Blakley was in the kitchen with “a clear and unobstructed view” of the abuse and beating of the child, Ow said.
“Dad saw and heard the entire incident and never intervened,” the prosecutor argued in court documents, “except to close a nearby window at mom’s request when the victim’s cries were too loud.” Ow also said the father walked past the couch to close the window.
The window, which was closed about 20 minutes after the spanking began, was about 12 to 15 feet away from a neighbor’s home, according to the prosecution.
The Blakleys had seven children — two biological children, five who were adopted. They all lived together in a home on New England Drive, just east of Sunrise Boulevard.
In the April preliminary hearing, the prosecution argued the mother was “exacting revenge” on Cyrus after he told his classmates or school officials that his dogs had died, and he was forced to take the pets outside. Braden told the judge that the mother could be heard in the video repeatedly saying Child Protective Services was going to come and take the children away because Cyrus didn’t care about the family.
Father ‘not the actual killer’
The defense attorney argued that there’s no evidence to suggest Cory Blakley was aware that his son was likely to die from his mother’s spanking. Zimmerman said the suffocation, while the mother sat on her child, may have well happened without the father knowing before he would have had a chance to intervene.
“It is unclear whether Mr. Blakley even heard any statement by (Cyrus that he) could not breathe,” Zimmerman argued.
. Even if the mother was aware that pinning her son down to spank him was dangerous and her conduct was in conscious disregard of life, Zimmerman said it doesn’t translate into “vicarious liability” to be imputed to the father for murder.
“Cory Blakley is not the actual killer,” Zimmerman argued in his motion. “Further, the prosecution can present no evidence that he intended to kill the child or that he aided or abetted Kimberly in the commission of murder.”
The incident that led to Cyrus’ death began about shortly after 5 p.m. Feb. 2 on the family’s living room couch, where the mother placed the child between her legs in a “vice-grip-like hold,” pulls down his pants and strikes his buttocks nine times, according to the prosecution. The boy was face down with his torso on a couch cushion while his mother was directly on top of him.
Ow, in the court documents, argued that the mother then hit her son “dozens, if not over 100 times” as he screamed “I can’t breathe.” The prosecutor said Kimberly Blakley taunted the child as he screamed for help, before she got one the boy’s siblings to hold down Cyrus’ legs while the father is seen and heard in video recordings “cooking and watching” in the kitchen.
At 5:27 p.m. and 5:48 p.m., the mother “is clearly captured” in two videos sitting on top of the boy, according to the prosecutor. Ow said the boy is eventually heard “making a whimper or gurgle as if he is struggling to breathe.”
Parents laughed at internet video
The prosecutor said the child no longer moved, responded or presented any indication he was alive at 5:36 p.m. Ow argued that Cory Bakley is seen in a video captured in a Ring-camera in the kitchen looking toward the living room numerous times during the incident, while he acted “nonchalant and laidback” and leaned back on the kitchen counter while drinking a Monster energy drink.
“Mom is also heard watching internet videos about a dog customer service line and laughing,” Ow argued in court documents. “Both mom and dad are recorded conversing and laughing about the funny video.”
About 45 minutes after the spanking began, the mother told the boy to get up, but he doesn’t, according to the prosecutor. Ow said the mother carries the boy upstairs at 5:53 p.m., his body “limp and offers no resistance, as she yells at the other children to go to their bedrooms.
About 6 p.m. Feb. 2, officers and firefighters responded to a medical aid call at the family’s home. The officers found the boy unresponsive. Cyrus died three days later at UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento.
The defense attorney argued that the only evidence presented is that the father knew Kimberly intended to spank the child; no evidence he was aware his wife intended to choke or suffocate their son.
“In fact, Kimberly continuously expressed a belief CB was faking it or that he was sleeping,” Zimmeran argued in his motion. “The spanking was not inherently dangerous to human life and was not the proximate cause of CB’s death.”
Zimmerman said it’s far too simplistic to conclude that since the child died, the father permitted his son to be placed in that situation or allowed him to remain in that situation.
He argued that “the reality is far more challenging” and the father shouldn’t face child abuse charges. The defense attorney also argued that neither parent should face torture charges.
“There is no evidence that Kimberly was the kind of abusive parent who likely presented an inherently dangerous risk to her children,” Zimmerman said in court documents. “Indeed, the County of Placer found her to be a suitable person to become a foster parent to five different children.”
Living room video deleted
The prosecution alleges that one of the children told investigators both parents would spank the children, and the dad was present during disciplining of the other Blakley children before the Feb. 2 incident. Ow argued that Cory Blakley deleted video captured on a camera in the living at the “explicit request” of his wife, who was heard in recordings on other cameras in the home saying “got to get rid of the video.”
The father can be seen in video nodding his head in affirmation to his wife’s request, the prosecutor said, and the father later told a detective the living room camera was not working or recording. Ow argued that the detective saw other cameras in the house, but the living room camera was missing, and a forensic examination of the Ring-app showed the living room camera was removed from the family’s account.
In his motion, the father’s attorney said that shortly before 6 pm. that day, when the mother “finally conceded they needed to call 911,” she told her husband to delete the video recordings.
Zimmerman argued that the charges of dissuading witnesses were added to the murder case as an “afterthought” just before the April preliminary hearing.
“The officers who testified at the preliminary hearing could not recall a specific thing that Cory said directly to any child to dissuade them from talking to police,” Zimmerman said in court documents. “When interviewed, none of the children claimed that Cory Blakley tried to dissuade them from talking to police about what happened.”
The prosecutor argued that video shows the couple’s 11-year-old biological daughter saying “I wish mom never sat on him,” which her father responded with “Shut up.” The child is heard in one of the videos screaming expletives, Ow said in court documents, and that at 6:34 p.m. Cory Blakley is heard saying “If you don’t want the cops to come, you need to stop yelling. Listen. Relax.”
The defense attorney noted that the video captures the child “screaming hysterically” and that Cory Blakely’s response was intended to stop that behavior rather than to dissuade her from speaking to police. Zimmerman said police had already been called at that point.
The couple’s 13-year-old biological son told investigators that Cyrus had kicked his mom in the face, but she had no facial injuries after Cyrus was taken to the hospital, the prosecutor argued.
Ow also said an 11-year-old girl adopted by the Blakleys told investigators that Kimberly Blakley told her to say that Cyrus had been flailing around and acting crazy, but the girl told investigators “that wasn’t true and she was there to speak the truth.” She also told investigators that Kimberly Blakley told her not to tell anyone, according to the prosecutor.
