Man gets 15 years for murder of girlfriend’s 2-year-old son

Michael R. Emerson was sentenced Wednesday to 15 years in prison for killing a 2-year-old boy who had just learned to say “I love you” and had never called anyone but Emerson “daddy.”

Emerson, 26, was baby-sitting Gage Roberts and two older sons of his girlfriend last July in the apartment they shared on West College. He became angry when Gage cried and refused to take a nap.

He hit the child on the top of his head as though driving a nail with a hammer. The blow was so hard it knocked the toddler to the floor and destroyed one side of his brain.

Gage Roberts lost consciousness about a half-hour later, and Emerson took him to Deaconess Medical Center where he died two days later. Emerson claimed at first that the boy fell and hit his head on a toy, but admitted the truth when challenged by police.

“I hit Gage, your honor, and he died because of it,” Emerson told Superior Court Judge Kathleen O’Connor on Wednesday, pleading guilty to second-degree murder.

Assistant Public Defender Mark Hannibal said Emerson made the plea to spare the victim’s mother, Yolanda Mendoza, from having to go through a trial.

Emerson faced a standard range of 10 1/4 to 18 1/3 years in prison. Deputy Prosecutor Patrick Johnson sought the maximum, while Hannibal called for 13 to 14 years.

Hannibal said Emerson “adored” Gage and, “with the exception of this fleeting little moment, their life was happy-go-lucky.”

Emerson’s father, Kenneth Emerson, also pleaded for mercy. He said his son had “no history of violence to other people, large or small,” and called the death a “tragic accident.”

Mendoza said she would have liked to call Michael Emerson abusive, “but he wasn’t that way.” Not to her, nor to her children. She trusted him.

Mendoza said she left her children’s biological father and moved to Spokane to escape abuse.

“She had high hopes for this man,” Johnson said, citing a photograph of Emerson with Mendoza’s three sons, ages 2, 4 and 5.

The photo was in a frame that said, “Daddy is the best.”

“Michael was the only person my son called ‘daddy,’ ” Mendoza said, noting Gage had just learned to say “I love you.”

She acknowledged that Emerson has a child of his own he wants to see, but said his relatives will be able to visit him in prison and send him cards.

“He wants a life, but my son doesn’t get a life,” Mendoza said. “… My boys don’t get their little brother back.”

She urged O’Connor to keep Emerson in prison as long as possible to protect other children.

Emerson, voice choked with emotion, asked Hannibal to read a statement in which he said he could offer no excuse or explanation for his action.

“I love and miss Gage so much,” Emerson wrote, adding that he thought the boy “could have been and probably would have been someone important, like a president or someone. He would have at least been liked by everyone lucky enough to have met him.”

He said he hoped Mendoza and her surviving children eventually will forgive him.

“Yolanda, please don’t hate me,” Emerson wrote. “I hate myself.”

O’Connor called the case “heart-rending.”

She acknowledged that Emerson had no history of violence and “very little criminal history of any kind,” just what Hannibal said was a “juvenile scrape.” But Emerson violated a trust and must be accountable, O’Connor added.

“Some day in this society we are going to learn that we shouldn’t raise our hands to small children,” the judge said.

Striking them, particularly in anger, is “fraught with danger,” O’Connor said. Even small blows can cause disabilities and death.

“Children pay the price every year,” O’Connor said.