John Jefferson
Left: Terry Robinson Jr. Right: Destiny Culvahouse (Bi-State Jail).
A mother and stepfather are behind bars in Texas in connection with the death of their 5-year-old, who allegedly suffered “massive bruises” to his abdomen, buttocks and extremities.
Terry Robinson Jr., 35, is facing a capital murder charge while Destiny Culvahouse, 24, faces a charge of injury to a child causing death by omission, Texarkana police say. Cops responded shortly after 2 p.m. on Sept. 27 for a call of a child not breathing at an apartment in the 3300 block of Nichols Drive.
Paramedics arrived and started doing CPR on the unresponsive boy later identified as Zaydon Robinson. They rushed him to the hospital where doctors pronounced him dead. Officers found “extensive injuries on the child victim indicating foul play,” according to a probable cause arrest affidavit obtained by Law&Crime.
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Detectives took Robinson and Culvahouse to the police station for interviews. Post-Miranda, Culvahouse told police that she woke up around 9 a.m. and Robinson had “disciplined” Zaydon for “stealing” prior to her getting out of bed, according to the affidavit. She said Robinson left the apartment to go grocery shopping and make a car payment. She said Zaydon was “acting normal” and seemed fine that morning, Culvahouse reportedly told cops. The boy and the other children in the home took a nap around 11 a.m.
When she went to Zaydon’s room around 12:30 a.m. to wake him, she noticed the boy wasn’t breathing, per the affidavit. She ran outside to alert Robinson, who was outside in his car. Robinson went inside and tried unsuccessfully to wake Zaydon up. He then tried to put the boy in a bathtub to “try and warm him up,” the affidavit said.
Culvahouse claimed she called 911 at 1:30 p.m. but dispatch logs reportedly showed she didn’t call until 2:12 p.m. — nearly two hours after she said she found Zaydon not breathing.
In his post-Miranda interview with detectives, Robinson allegedly said he woke up at 3 a.m. to find Zaydon awake and sent the boy back to his room before going back to sleep. Robinson said he woke up around 7 a.m. to get his daughters breakfast. He then got Zaydon up around 8 or 9 a.m.
“Terry advised that he then observed that the victim had ‘stolen’ a diaper bag, a microphone stand and two drinks sometime during the nighttime,” detectives wrote. “Terry advised that this upset him, and he had he had a talk with the victim.”
Robinson then allegedly said he went grocery shopping, paid his car bill and applied for a job before returning home.
He said he was outside the apartment in his car when Culvahouse came rushing out saying she thought Zaydon was dead, according to the affidavit. Robinson said he took the unconscious Zaydon to the bathtub and put him under “lukewarm” water. After other lifesaving measures were unsuccessful, he had Culvahouse call 911. He initially claimed only “five minutes” passed between the time he found Zaydon and they called 911, cops said. But detectives confronted him that much more time had elapsed, according to the affidavit.
Robinson initially denied hitting the victim but eventually admitted to hitting the victim an “unknown” amount of times with a belt because he was upset that the victim was “not listening,” the affidavit said.
Officers took Robinson and Culvahouse to the Bi-State Detention Center where they both remain. Culvahouse has a $1 million bond while Robinson’s bail is set at $5 million.
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