Toddler Allegedly Killed By Sisters For Taking Cupcake In Roach-Infested Home

Two women in Georgia are accused of beating their three-year-old brother to death with a baseball bat for taking a cupcake in Oct. 2017. They are set to go on trial Thursday.

Glenndria Morris and LaShirley Morris each have been charged with two counts of felony murder, one count of aggravated assault and two counts of cruelty to children in the first degree in the death of Kejuan Mason.

The sisters of the victim were indicted on Jan. 30, 2018. According to NBC-affiliated 11 Alive, the Fulton County District Attorney's Office released he following statement regarding the indictment:

“The indictment alleges, that on Oct. 21, 2017, LaShirley picked up a baseball bat and struck three-year-old KeJuan Mason for taking a cupcake from the kitchen. According to the indictment, LaShirley used the bat to hit KeJuan repeatedly in the head while Glenndria, the child’s legal guardian, used her hand to spank KeJuan on his bottom; as a result of this attack, KeJuan sustained bruises all over his body, including his legs, back, chest, buttocks, arm, and head.”

The statement also added that both the accused, faced a maximum sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted. Both of them were to remain in Fulton County Jail till their trial date.

The police first responded to the Mason’s apartment, located on Cleveland Avenue in Atlanta, Georgia, after receiving a 911 call where the caller told the dispatcher that the victim had stopped breathing. On arriving at the scene – which according to the incident report of a responding officer, “was infested with roaches” – Glenndria identified herself as the victim’s guardian and gave an account of the events which did not line up with the medical examiner’s report released later.

Glenndria said Mason choked on a cupcake that he had been handed and stopped breathing. Then she and another man in the apartment tried to revive him by performing CPR. According to police records, Glenndria changed her account later on, saying that the victim started breathing again once the cupcake was removed. And that it was only when he went to sleep a little while after that, he became unresponsive.

Authorities also noted at the time that the only other person present in the house besides Glenndria was LaShirley and both of them refused to cooperate with law enforcement, by being unwilling to reveal the name and phone number of the boy's mother.

Paramedics rushed the victim to the hospital where he was announced dead on arrival. Three days later, the medical examiner released an autopsy report, which determined Mason’s cause of death to be blunt force trauma. After the police launched an investigation into the incident, Glenndria and LaShirley were arrested on Oct. 26, 2017.

Glenndria’s attorney’s plea to have her client’s bond lowered from $200,000 to between $50,000 and $75,000 was rejected by the court in June. In the same court appearance, the victim’s grandmother told the court that Glenndria had confessed to killing her grandson before the autopsy reports came back.

"I have five grandbabies. I had six. It is unfair. He was just three years old. What can a baby do, three years old to make you beat him to death,” Mason’s grandmother added before the court at the time.