Suspect in boy’s death found

A Coeur d’Alene man believed to have killed his 15-month-old son was found Monday in a hospital outside Idaho suffering from severe frostbite.

Kootenai County Sheriff investigators located Barry L. McAdoo, 30, after a hospital worker recognized McAdoo’s face from seeing media reports on his disappearance, Sheriff Capt. Ben Wolfinger said.

Because McAdoo is not yet in police custody, Wolfinger said he can’t release the location of the suspect or any other information. He added that doctors were uncertain when they would release McAdoo from the hospital. When he is released, McAdoo will be extradited back to Kootenai County.

McAdoo left Coeur d’Alene Jan. 14, when his girlfriend reported their son’s injuries. Brandon McAdoo died of a “blunt trauma injury” to his head, an autopsy showed.

The autopsy also revealed a partially healed fracture in the toddler’s arm. State officials investigated a report that Brandon McAdoo was being abused just a month before he died, a Kootenai County Sheriff’s detective said last week. McAdoo was likely suffering from the untreated fracture to his right forearm at the time the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare investigated the complaint, Detective Dan Mattos said.

A judge has set bail for McAdoo’s warrant for felony injury to a child at $200,000 and additional charges may be filed once the investigation is complete, police said.

McAdoo has a criminal history in Kentucky, where he has family, with convictions for domestic violence and property crimes, according to investigators. Sheriff officials said he also has ties to Missouri and Louisiana and stated last week that there’s “at least a possibility” he was headed that way.

On Saturday, a Sheriff’s deputy interviewed an acquaintance of McAdoo’s who said he had hired McAdoo around Thanksgiving to help him with a construction job in Eureka, Mont. The acquaintance, William Poe, told the officer that he fired McAdoo after two days because McAdoo was lazy.

Poe, who works for a Missoula-based company, suggested McAdoo might have gone to Othello, Wash., where, Poe told officers, McAdoo had met Angela Cowles, Brandon McAdoo’s mother.

The suspect was last seen Jan. 14 leaving the Monte Vista Motel and RV Park. The family had lived in a travel trailer in the RV park since arriving in Idaho last spring.

Brandon McAdoo’s mother, Cowles, 33, initially told police she fell on the ice while carrying her son. Medical examinations showed the injuries the toddler received weren’t consistent with a fall and Cowles then changed her story.

She told investigators that McAdoo may have injured the child while trying to retrieve a piece of plastic-coated paper from the child’s mouth.