A Florida father has accepted a plea deal that will send him to prison for 45 years for suffocating his 7-week-old son.
Joseph Walsh, 38, allegedly shrugged off emotional statements from family members before being led from the courtroom in Sarasota Tuesday. State Attorney Ed Brodsky says Walsh abused baby Chance Walsh in a drug-induced rage on Sept. 16, 2015, before putting a baby wipe in the infant's throat and suffocating from to death.
Grandmother Sally Susino told the newspaper the family would have preferred a life sentence or the death penalty, but that was off the table after the apparent suicide of the infant's mother Kristin Bury-Walsh last September, who was required under her plea deal to testify against Walsh.
The child's body was found in a shallow grave near Sarasota.