Florida Man Charged With Beating Stepson, 7, to Death

A Florida man who was angry that his 7-year-old stepson got out of bed to get a cookie brutally beat the boy and left him in bed to die, authorities said on Tuesday.

The man, Jack J. Montgomery, 31, who faces charges of first-degree murder and child abuse, called 911 about 10:50 a.m. Saturday to report that his stepson, Brice Russell, would not wake up and was not breathing in their room at a hotel in Seffner, Florida, about 20 miles east of Tampa, the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement Tuesday. Montgomery had been watching over the boy and three siblings at the hotel while their mother worked, the department said.

When medics arrived at the hotel, they found the boy lying in bed. He was pronounced dead just before 11 a.m., the sheriff’s department statement said.

Investigators said that Montgomery had “punched the child in the face, mouth and stomach with a closed fist, threw the victim around the hotel room and shoved his face into the carpet,” the statement said. It said that the other children told investigators they were threatened with violence unless they also hit Brice, and one child did.

“Ultimately, the children saw Montgomery pick Brice up by the leg and threw him against a shelf along the wall,” the sheriff’s statement said. “The children told detectives they saw blood coming from his nose and mouth and that their brother never woke up after that.”

According to an affidavit from the sheriff’s department, Montgomery told investigators he threw Brice on the bed after he tried to sneak a cookie, causing the boy to hit his head on the headboard, but denied inflicting “serious injury” and said the boy “appeared OK,” the affidavit said.

Montgomery denied knowing Brice was “seriously hurt or dead” before he tried to wake him up, the affidavit said.

The medical examiner’s office determined that the boy’s death was a result of “homicidal violence,” and Montgomery was arrested Sunday, the statement said.

On Monday, as Montgomery made his first appearance in court, Matthew Smith, a prosecutor with the state attorney’s office, told the court that at one point Montgomery flung the boy like a “helicopter.”

He then made the other children sleep in the same bed with the dead child, Smith said.

“Mr. Montgomery took the child, put him in bed and had his siblings sleep with him while Brice was dead that entire night,” Smith said, according to a video of his remarks published by Fox 13.

Montgomery’s charges carry the death penalty, Smith said.

A sheriff’s department affidavit said that deputies had been called to the hotel earlier in the morning on Saturday after a guest in another room reported what sounded like Montgomery yelling “beat the kid” and “push the kid over here.” But the deputies left after Montgomery showed them the sleeping children.

“We are currently reviewing the circumstances that occurred that night and all of that is part of the investigation,” said Daniel A. Alvarez, a sheriff’s department spokesman, in an emailed statement.

Calls to the state attorney’s office were not returned Tuesday. It was not immediately clear whether Montgomery, who was being held on $870,000 bond, had a lawyer.