Foul play ruled out in North Georgia 8-year-old’s death

An 8-year-old boy found dead behind his grandmother’s northwest Georgia home three months ago died from a head injury sustained during a fall days earlier, authorities said.

The body of Bentley Carter Robbins was discovered about 8 p.m. Oct. 3, approximately 50 yards from his family’s home in the 100 block of Old Grand Center Road in Chickamauga,  AJC.com previously reported.

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Walker County Sheriff Steve Wilson said the second-grader went to class at Chattanooga Valley Elementary School that morning but fell ill and had to be picked up about 10 a.m.

His body was discovered approximately 10 hours later by his grandmother and his mother’s boyfriend, the sheriff said.

Robbins complained of flu-like symptoms leading up to his death, including vomiting and a fever, Chattanooga-based WTVC reported. But after going home from school and feeling better, he went outside to play with friends.

Nobody realized that his brain was hemorrhaging.

“Sometime that afternoon is when we believe we wandered off into the woods and laid down and died,” Wilson said, adding that the autopsy revealed Robbins’ death was caused by blunt force trauma to the head.

As a result, deputies have ruled out foul play in the child’s death.

“We interviewed separate sources who told us that two or three days prior to the death, he reported playing around the home and falling and hitting his head on a large rock,” Wilson said. “He reported that to his mother and grandmother, and the next day at school he told the same thing to a school nurse. The doctor performing the autopsy found that the injury was consistent with his story of falling and hitting his head.”

Investigators said there wasn’t much visible evidence of Robbins’ head injury, but that the fall caused his brain to swell.

Robbins’ mother took him to the emergency room the day before his death, WTVC reported, but they ended up leaving without seeing a doctor.