Keishawn Gordon was arrested after he abused and murdered Legacy Beauford, a baby he was babysitting whose cries bothered him too much.
Gordon is the boyfriend of one-year-old Legacy’s mother, Jessica Melendez. The day before he murdered the baby, the child was crying uncontrollably, reported The New York Times.
Initially, Gordon told police that he gently squeezed the baby and tossed him in the air to pacify him. Later, he would admit to crimes that were much more heinous.
According to police, the unhinged man punched and sexually assaulted Legacy, causing a lacerated liver, broken ribs and copious amounts of bruising in the mother’s Bronx apartment. The baby died of internal bleeding.
“I was frustrated he wouldn’t stop crying. He kept throwing up. I mushed him. He was irking me,” Gordon said.
Scratching the surface, Legacy’s death has deeper implications that potentially point to a failure of child welfare services.
Since May, police had responded to three emergency calls to Legacy’s home, two of which were based on suspected child abuse. However, police claim they observed nothing irregular about the state of the children in the home.
On July 14, city social workers were assigned a case to investigate claims that Legacy’s older brother had been sexually abused. Without examining or interviewing any of the children in the home, the police closed the case.
Gordon’s rap sheet is long. It includes robbery charges in 2019 and assault in 2018. According to the New York Post, he has been arrested at least 18 times. Seven of those were felonies.
In 2018, he was charged with obstruction of breathing when he placed his hands around a woman’s neck and slammed her to the floor.
Gordon, 23, was charged with murder and manslaughter in the Bronx. His attorney has not spoken to the media about the charges.
There is a GoFundMe page for Legacy.
