Man who killed girlfriend’s 3-year-old and fled to Vegas sentenced to 14 years in prison

A Spokane judge on Friday sentenced a 40-year-old man who killed his girlfriend’s toddler and fled to Las Vegas to 14 years in prison .

John Lemar Jones killed 3-year-old Wesley Brenston-Studebaker in January 2024, but it’s unclear how. Jones was originally charged with murder but pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide, court records show. He said in court Friday that it was an accident and he has accepted responsibility for the boy’s death.

“I am sad all the time. I cry all the time. I don’t sleep anymore,” Wesley’s mother, Alexis Brenston, wrote in a statement to the court. “I am constantly thinking about the look on my son’s face when I saw his lifeless body … May Jesus Christ have mercy on your soul because you sure didn’t have any on Wesley.”

Medics responded to a house on the 5000 block of North Ash Street on Jan. 31 after a woman called to report her son wasn’t breathing. Medics told officers the boy was clearly dead and cold to the touch when they arrived, according to court documents. They saw fresh bruising on the boy’s face and torso. The Spokane County Medical Examiner determined the child died by homicide from blunt-force injuries.

According to court documents, the boy had extreme and internal bleeding, and two cracked ribs. The doctor who performed the autopsy likened his injuries to the trauma of a serious car crash or falling two or three stories.

Brenston told police she dropped her two sons off that day with Jones so she could grocery shop at Walmart on Sprague Avenue. When she was done, she called Jones to pick her up, and he apologized and said he had driven to the wrong Walmart. When he came and got her, Brenston got into the car and noticed nothing odd – her two kids were peacefully sleeping in their car seats. Jones said he fed them McDonald’s for dinner, according to court records.

Brenston unloaded the groceries when the couple got home as Jones brought the sleeping boys inside. He then left to go run errands and said he would come back in an hour. After more than an hour had passed, Jones called and told her he would be back in 20 minutes. Jones called her again and told her he was getting pulled over by a police officer, though court documents say investigators could find no record of the stop.

When he called back, he said he was let off with a ticket, parked her car at the gas station near her home and was stopping at Burger King, though when she checked the gas station, her car wasn’t there. Jones suggested she report it as stolen, according to court documents. She eventually grew tired of waiting for him to come back to the house and decided to go to bed. She checked on Wesley before turning in for the night and discovered he wasn’t breathing.

“I was not mentally prepared to come home to see first responders parked alongside my house,” Wesley’s aunt wrote in a statement to the court Friday. “In that moment, I shattered … I was not prepared to hear my sister wailing.”

The firefighter-paramedics from the Spokane Fire Department who responded to Wesley’s death were also in the courtroom, watching alongside investigators as the boy’s family sat in front of them and cried.

“My family and I were not prepared to bury a 3-year-old child,” the aunt said.

Jones was arrested in Las Vegas, Nevada, in February, driving the same van he claimed was stolen. Investigators said they don’t believe the toddler died in a car crash because of the lack of injuries to the woman’s other toddler and lack of damage on her van when it was recovered.

Jones’ family filled the right side of the courtroom Friday. They asked Spokane Superior Court Judge Julie McKay to have mercy on Jones when sentencing him. Jones’ mother repeatedly apologized to the judge and Wesley’s family for what had happened, though the son she knew wouldn’t have done this, she said.

“I don’t know what happened … If I could take back whatever happened that night, I would, but I can’t,” she said. Other family members talked about how Jones had raised them, took care of them and helped put food on the table as children. They all also expressed wishes to find healing with God.

Jones apologized to the Brenston family and said he loved the two boys like his own.

“I hope someday everyone can forgive me,” he said.

McKay acknowledged to both families that she cannot take their pain away, but she hopes they find ways to move forward.

“It doesn’t feel good and won’t when you leave here,” she said. “… And there is nothing the court can do to patch that hole.”