Murder charges filed in boy’s death

BOISE – An 8-year-old Boise boy whose body was pulled from an irrigation canal earlier this month was tortured, beaten repeatedly and ultimately killed by his mother’s live-in boyfriend, according to a grand jury indictment.

An Ada County grand jury indictment accuses the boy’s mother, Melissa Jenkins, 30, of aiding and abetting her boyfriend, Daniel Ehrlick, in the death of her son Robert Manwill and, in the weeks preceding his death, hiding the boy’s injuries from government officials who could have intervened.

Jenkins and Ehrlick, 36, were each charged with first-degree murder Wednesday in the death of the boy, whose disappearance launched a massive law enforcement and community effort to find him last month.

His body was found Aug. 3 in an irrigation canal several miles southwest of Boise.

The indictment made public Wednesday charges Ehrlick with a second felony for failing to report a death. It accuses him of beating the boy, causing severe head trauma and abdominal injuries that led to his death July 24.

The indictment accuses Jenkins her of knowing her son was being beaten and suffering emotional trauma, yet refusing to get him medical attention and deliberately concealing the child’s injuries.