DENVER—A 7-year-old boy who weighed just 31 pounds when he died was kept in a closet for days at a time without food, water or access to a toilet, a newly released court document says.
Chandler Grafner was suffering from starvation and dehydration and had more than two dozen cuts and bruises when he died May 6 after suffering cardiac arrest, the coroner said.
His guardian, Jon Phillips, 26, and Phillips’ girlfriend, Sarah Berry, 22, face charges of first-degree murder and child abuse resulting in death.
Darren Cantor, Phillips’ lawyer, said he couldn’t comment. Berry’s attorney, Jason Young, did not immediately return a phone call.
A police statement of probable cause, reported Wednesday by The Denver Post, quotes Chandler’s younger half-brother as saying Chandler was regularly put in the closet when he had been “bad” and was left there for days and nights.
He was sometimes given oatmeal when he complained, “but he would have to stay in the closet to eat it,” the document says.
The half-brother, 5-year-old Dominick Phillips, is Jon Phillips’ son, authorities said. Dominick has been placed in foster care.
Chandler was not related to Jon Phillips but was the son of Phillips’ former girlfriend. Authorities said Phillips agreed to take custody after a court removed Chandler from his mother’s care.
Dominick told detectives that Chandler was not allowed out to use the toilet and sometimes defecated in the closet, getting feces on himself and the walls and angering Phillips, the document says.
Dominick said Chandler was placed in the closet on May 4 for taking food from the kitchen and was left there until May 6, the day he died.
The statement of probable cause, written by Detective David Neil, says Phillips removed Chandler from the closet and changed the child’s clothes before calling 911.
The document says Berry told a dispatcher that Chandler had flu-like symptoms for five days and had been losing weight and foaming at the mouth.
