Father arrested after coroner finds 3-month-old’s death was homicide, Sacramento deputies say

An Arden Arcade man was arrested Wednesday in connection with the August death of his infant son.

The Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office said it took Andrew Gray-Blessett, 23, into custody after the Coroner’s Office determined the 3-month-old boy’s death was a homicide.

“After examining a considerable amount of evidence in conjunction with numerous witness statements, detectives obtained an arrest warrant for Gray-Blessett for murder and assault of a child under eight, resulting in death,” the Sheriff’s Office said in a news release Thursday morning.

Deputies said that Gray-Blessett had called 911 on Aug. 29 and “told the dispatcher he was rocking his 3-month-old son to sleep, and the child stopped breathing.” Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District personnel and deputies responded to the man’s home on the 3800 block of Kings Way and the infant, identified as Andrew Gray-Blessett Jr., was taken to a hospital where he later died.

“Per standard protocol for an unexplained child death, detectives from the Sheriff’s Office Child Abuse Bureau (CAB) responded to investigate. The family, including Gray-Blessett, was cooperative, and nothing initially seemed out of the ordinary or suspicious,” the Sheriff’s Office said in the statement. “Detectives continued their investigation that day and interviewed witnesses while Crime Scene Investigators and the Coroner’s Office forensically processed the scene.”

In an autopsy, the Coroner’s Office found the boy had suffered “significant blunt head trauma” and its findings were “consistent with severe traumatic brain injury.”

Gray-Blessett remains in Sheriff’s Office custody at the Sacramento Main Jail, ineligible for bail. He is expected to be arraigned on the felony charges Friday afternoon.