Boyfriend accused in beating death of Dallas baby

by Rebecca Aguilar

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Autopsy results of the child will determine whether the charge against Peterson should be upgraded to capital murder.

Dallas police say 22-year-old Jonathan Peterson couldn’t take hearing his girlfriend’s baby cry Tuesday afternoon, so he beat him to death. Peterson called 911 when one-year-old Bronson Franklin stopped breathing.

Dallas police spokeswoman Senior Corporal Janice Crowther says, "When paramedics arrived to the WinWood Apartments in Oak Cliff, they found the baby covered in bruises. They were not able to revive him."

Investigators say the baby’s mother had left her son in Peterson's care when she went to work in the morning. Senior Corporal Crowther adds, "Peterson admitted to police that he whipped the baby to make him stop crying."

Peterson has been booked on a charge of injury to a child. Senior Corporal Crowther says autopsy results of the child will determine whether the charge against Peterson should be upgraded to capital murder. He now sits in the Dallas County Jail.