Dad gets 22 years in infant’s death
Albuquerque father pleads guilty to 2nd-degree murder, child abandonment
An Albuquerque father was sentenced Wednesday to 22 years in prison in connection to the death of his infant son.
Spenser Phillips, 27, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and child abandonment before District Judge Briana Zamora. Phillips took an Alford plea, which allows a defendant to acknowledge that evidence would support a conviction while maintaining innocence.
Employees of a local hospital called police May 30, 2015, after 10-week-old Felix Phillips arrived with a brain bleed, according to a criminal complaint. Medical investigators found that the child died of blunt force trauma to the head, a prosecutor said. The baby was taken off life support June 2, 2015. April Sanchez, the boy’s mother, told officers that Phillips was caring for the baby while she was at work that night.
“When she came home, she found her child unresponsive, gasping and pale in color in his crib,” prosecutor
Haley Murphy said. “The defendant was staring down over him doing nothing.”
Phillips declined to speak in court, but his attorney said the child’s death represented a tragedy for both the Sanchez and Phillips families.
Sanchez said she hopes Phillips spends each day of his sentence thinking of the life he took. She said she mourns for moments she’ll never have with a baby who was “stolen away.”
“I no longer want children or feel that I can trust another human being,” she said. “All I have left are a few memories with Felix.”
Phillips said the boy had been fussy that evening, so he put him in a chair in the living room, according to police. He said he went into the kitchen to get a snack, and saw the baby “bounce himself back” flipping the chair backward.
Murphy said the “widespread injuries Felix sustained in no way are explained by a short fall onto a carpeted surface.”
Phillips said the baby cried in an unusual way for around 30 minutes. He didn’t have a phone, he said, and was unable to call for help. He said he waited to seek medical help for the baby because he was scared, according to police.