Gwinnett County police have charged a former Southeastern Conference football player with murder in connection with the death of a 4-year-old boy.
Steven Terrence Singleton, a former football standout at Buford High School and college player at both LSU and South Carolina, was booked into the Gwinnett County jail around 5 p.m. Wednesday. Online records showed the 26-year-old was being held without bond on charges of felony murder and first-degree cruelty to children.
Arrest warrants obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution accused Singleton of “inflicting fatal brain injuries” against a youngster named Tye Hardin on Saturday.
In the last several days, Singleton posted multiple times on Facebook about the same child, a 4-year-old boy he called his "little buddy." A GoFundMe.com page set up for that child's mother said the youngster passed away Monday after "a head injury that (left) him in the hospital on life support, brain dead."
Singleton’s relationship with the child was unclear. The child’s obituary did not list Singleton as a relative.
The exact nature of the fatal incident, which warrants said occurred at a home on Club Lakes Parkway near Lawrenceville, was also unclear. Gwinnett County police spokesman Cpl. Deon Washington said his department would provide more information on the case Thursday.
Singleton graduated from Buford High School, where he made The AJC’s Super Southern 100, in 2006. He began his college career at LSU before reportedly becoming “homesick” and attending Georgia Military College in Milledgeville. He landed at South Carolina in 2009.
Online jail records show Singleton was booked into the Gwinnett County jail at almost exactly the same time Wednesday that a Duluth couple was being booked on similar charges in connection with their 10-week-old daughter's death.
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