Two-Year-Old Dies, Boyfriend Charged
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[A 24-year-old Elkville man faces a 1 p.m. arraignment Tuesday on murder charges after he allegedly grabbed his girlfriend's 2-year-old toddler by the wrist and arm and swung him into a wall on a dead end street on Elkville's west side Friday night.
Jackson County State's Attorney Michael L. Wepsiec held a 4:30 p.m. press conference in Murphysboro Monday and said Jarrod Wayne Rudder is being charged with two counts of first degree murder in the death of Michael Pulliam.
Michael is the son of Amanda Howell, who resides in a mobile home one block west and a half-block south of the Elkville Christian Church.
Elkville Sgt. Clay McDonnough said he got a 911 ambulance call at 11:58 p.m. Friday, arrived at the mobile home at 206 South Second Street by 12:05 a.m. and found the child "unconscious and unresponsive."
A neighbor said, "He (Michael) wasn't moving" as medics came down the steps to the mobile home and loaded the gurney into an ambulance in front of the home.
Michael was taken by Jackson County Ambulance to Memorial Hospital in Carbondale. "Michael was subsequently transported by helicopter to Children's Hospital in St. Louis for more extensive treatment," Wepsiec said. He said the child's injuries included "a brain bleed, several fractures and multiple contusions."
Rudder has been charged with two counts of first degree murder. Pulliam died Sunday night in St. Louis Children's Hospital.
Bond was to be set today and a preliminary hearing scheduled.
Jackson County State's Attorney Michael L. Wepsiec stood alongside Sheriff Robert Burns at the press conference. Sheriff Burns did not comment.
Wepsiec said, "I am alleging that the defendant, without legal justification, grabbed Michael by the wrist and swung him by the arm, causing Michael to strike both a lamp and a wall with his head, thereby causing the fatal injuries."
Wepsiec did not refer to the child by his last name, but several sources including family members confirmed it is Michael Pulliam. An autopsy was performed early Monday, as parallel investigations were conducted by the Elkville Police Department, the Jackson County Sheriff's Department and Illinois State Police District 13 investigations in Du Quoin.
Officers in the cash-strapped community seven miles south of Du Quoin have been told to expend whatever time it takes to thoroughly investigate the toddler's death.
Wepsiec said the boy's mother had left the boy in Rudder's care while she was working.
A neighbor across the street said that was common when she worked and that when the boy was out on the steps of the mobile home or in the yard someone was always with him. Extended family members differ over his care and claim they had called the Illinois Department of Child and Family Services before, but DCFS found nothing to warrant intervention. Another child was removed from the home in 2008.
Elkville Police contacted the Jackson County Sheriff's Department, which began investigating the case and learned Michael was left in the care of Rudder, a live-in boyfriend. Michael's one-year-old brother, who was in the home at the time of the incident, was removed from the home on Monday.
"As a parent, I feel a lot of pain for that child," Wepsiec said.
He thanked Elkville police and Jackson County detectives who have been interviewing those who saw the 2-year-old Friday afternoon.
"The investigation into this homicide is ongoing and consequently the facts are still being uncovered," he said. "Rule 3.6 of the Illinois Supreme Court Rules of Professional Conduct prohibits me from discussing much more about the case."