Dad Gets 40 Years For 'Brutal Murder' Of Infant Son

GREENBELT, MD — A Greenbelt man was sentenced to 40 years in prison Thursday for punching his 2-month-old son to death, leaving the child's body in the back of a hearse and finally burying his body in a shallow grave in 2016.

The Prince George's County State's Attorney's Office announced the verdict after Antoine Petty, 32, pleaded guilty Aug. 1. Petty pleaded guilty to child abuse causing death and received the maximum sentence.

“I don't think there's any case that has disturbed me to the core as much as this one,” Prince George's County Judge Micheal Pearson said.

On Oct. 17, 2016, detectives were notified by family members that Petty's wife, Geneice Petty, 24, and their son were missing. Detectives were able to locate Geneice the next day.

Detectives discovered Petty became annoyed when his son wouldn't stop crying on Sept. 21, 2016, so he took him outside onto a balcony and punched him several times. WJLA reports that charging documents state Petty continuously punched the child with a closed fist until the child bled from his nose and mouth.

Petty allegedly put his son's dead body in a 1998 Lincoln Town Car hearse he was driving, and left the boy there for over 24 hours. The Petty parents both admitted they then buried the baby in an effort to conceal the crime, police said. They led detectives to a shallow grave behind Parkdale High School in the Riverdale area, where the baby was found dead.

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The parents kept the baby's death a secret for over three weeks, before family reported to police that Geneice and the baby were missing. During interviews, Antoine Petty admitted that he assaulted his son, resulting in the child's death, Prince George's County Police said.

"The baby in this case was completely defenseless, nobody came to the defense of this baby," State's Attorney Angela D. Alsobrooks said at a press conference Thursday. "Not his family, not the government, not his parents, he was literally a defenseless baby. At two months old, he had no person to protect him."

"Even today, as his father stood in court, guilty and sentenced to 40 years for his brutal murder, there was not a single person in the court room who was willing to speak for this baby, except for the prosecutor in this case," Alsobrooks said.

Geneice Petty pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter on Oct. 2, 2017, the Prince George's County State's Attorney's Office said.

Photos: Prince George's County Police Department