Bond was set Tuesday at $30,000 for a Paulding County father after a judge Tuesday determined Tuesday that there was probable cause to charge him with murder and child cruelty in the Oct. 11 death of his 12-year-old son.
Shayaa Yusef Forbes, 32, told a 911 operator that he found his son, Eric Forbes, unconscious in the bathtub.
“I thought he was in the tub, but when I went in to try and see him … he was a little bit underwater. His head was, like, bobbing,” Shayaa Forbes told an operator in a 911 recording obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The child died later that evening at a local hospital, and Forbes was charged with felony child cruelty. Emergency responders found signs of severe abuse on the child’s body, said Cpl. Ashley Henson of the Paulding County Sheriff’s Office.
The boy was a sixth-grader at McClure Middle School. Additional child cruelty charges and a murder charge were later brought against Forbes after the state medical examiner ruled Eric’s death a homicide.
A cause of death was not released, pending the results of additional testing.
Investigators have not released details about what they believe happened in the home on North Springs Drive near Acworth. But the child showed signs of repeated abuse, Henson said.
“The male juvenile, who had multiple bruises, bite marks, lacerations and other marks that are consistent with physical abuse, appeared to have endured abuse for quite some time,” Henson said.
Eric’s younger sister, Erica, has been in the custody of the state Division of Family and Children Services since the night her brother died, police said. The children’s mother, Ashlei Majors, later attempted to get custody of Erica, but a Paulding judge delayed the hearing because neither Majors nor Forbes had an attorney present.
Forbes’ case still must be presented to a grand jury. No other court hearings are planned at this time.
About the Author
