A Mesa man's been charged with murder in the beating death of his girlfriend's 4-year-old son.
According to the Mesa Police Department, 23-year-old Jorge Busso was watching the boy Friday afternoon while the mother was at work.
By 4 p.m. that same afternoon, the kid was being airlifted from Banner Baywood hospital to Phoenix Children's Hospital with injuries "so serious [he] was not expected to survive."
And he didn't -- the child was pronounced dead yesterday morning.
After meeting with the child in the hospital, Mesa police tracked down
Busso at the home he shared with the boy and the mother at 214 South 89
Street in Mesa.
Busso told cops that when he was watching the boy he started to smell
something. The boy had gone to the bathroom in his pants, and to punish
him Busso threw him in a corner and started beating him with a belt.
Busso told police that as he was beating the 4-year-old, the child's head hit the wall as he was being pushed into the corner.
He says that's how the boy sustained the injury that ultimately killed him.
When the boy's mother got home from work, she found her son laying in
his bed unresponsive. She immediately took him to the hospital for
treatment.
Busso was initially booked on one count of child abuse and one count of
false reporting. Since the boy died, Busso has also been charged with
first-degree murder.
