After a 2-year-old girl made a little mistake ahead of birthday celebrations, the toddler was tragically beaten to death by a Texas man. He’s since learned his fate for the heinous crime he committed.
Jadin Nunez, a 27-year-old Texas man, allegedly became enraged with his girlfriend’s 2-year-old daughter, Shannah McAlpine, just moments before they were headed to a local store to pick up supplies for her upcoming birthday party, The Blaze reported. Sadly, the child would never make it to her birthday celebrations as Nunez flew into a violent rage and began beating the child over a simple mistake.
According to police, Nunez began beating Shannah because she put her shoes on the wrong feet. For this simple mistake, Nunez violently struck the toddler across her face and forcefully punched her in the stomach at least three times while holding the child in the air. After the beating, the child’s mother, Ashley Marie McAlpine, reportedly discovered the child in distress.
After seeing her daughter’s condition, Ashley whisked Shannah from the room and reportedly placed her on a bed elsewhere in the home, but Nunez was undeterred. He came into the room and continued his violent assault, choking the child with both hands, her mother said. Even as the child began to turn blue, Nunez refused to give up, according to the mom.
Eventually, Nunez stopped choking the girl, who gasped for air and curled into a fetal position, her mother recalled. Unfortunately, the damage was already done as Ashley would discover when she was awakened by her daughter’s cries later that night. As Ashley tried to ply her daughter with food and drink in an attempt to calm the toddler, she quickly realized something wasn’t quite right.
Shannah’s stomach was swollen and hot, but the rest of her body was cold. Ashley decided to try to put her daughter in the shower to cool her down, but the small child was unable to stand and could not breathe, causing Ashley to finally call 911. After being summoned to the home, first responders arrived on the scene to discover the child was unresponsive and covered in bruises.
Sadly, Shannah did not survive. After succumbing to her injuries, just days away from her third birthday, authorities determined that Shannah died of blunt force trauma to her stomach, and Jadin Nunez was arrested for her murder two days after her death.
Ashley McAlpine was also charged with injury to a child in connection with the death after a child protective service report alleged that she was aware Nunez was beating her children and authorities said she failed to stop him. She has, however, maintained her innocence and pleaded not guilty.
As McAlpine was being held in the Bell County Jail in lieu of a $500,000 bond on the first-degree felony charge, Jadin Nunez was sentenced by a Bell County, Texas, judge after a jury of his peers found him guilty of murdering 2-year-old Shannah McAlpine. According to the Killeen Daily Herald, he received a sentence of life in prison with no chance of parole for the beating death.
While it’s nice to see justice served, it’s also incredibly disheartening that this crime occurred in the first place. And, whether Shannah Alpine’s mother knew and failed to stop the abuse is actually irrelevant to her guilt in this child’s death, in my opinion. She saw the condition her daughter was in.
The moment this mother saw the man choke her child, turning the girl blue, and didn’t get the toddler immediate medical attention, she played a part in the child’s murder. After all, Ashley Alpine proved she was able to call 911 when she did so later. Unfortunately, it was too little too late.
Although this mother was likely concerned for her own well-being, that’s the risk most moms would take to keep their children safe. Again, Ashley proved she was able to alert authorities when she did so later. Not doing so sooner is, at minimum, a form of neglect.
If a man lays his hands on a child, it is the mother’s responsibility to get help, regardless of the risks she might face. Ashley put Shannah in this situation when she allowed Nunez into their life. At just 2 years old, the child had no hopes of getting away from the abuse without her mother’s help, and that’s the real tragedy here. Mothers, please protect your children at all costs.
