Prosecutor: Man beat girlfriend, caused death of their unborn child

Tanner D. Hopkins didn’t want his girlfriend to deliver their baby, prosecutors said during opening statements Monday in Montgomery County Common Pleas Court.

“I hope you and that (expletive) baby die,” assistant prosecutor Emily Sluk told jurors what Hopkins said to his girlfriend. “Those are his words. That is what he said as he stomped, kicked and body-slammed the mother of his child.”

Hopkins, 25, of Dayton, is on trial for murder, involuntary manslaughter, reckless homicide, felonious assault and having weapons while under disability for the Jan. 13, 2015, death of a 7-month-old female fetus.

Sluk said the woman had other plans that day, but those changed when Hopkins told her to come over to his mother’s house even though he had allegedly assaulted her a month earlier.

“She said OK and that is a decision that she will regret for the rest of her life,” Sluk said. “And a decision that ended her baby’s life.”

Defense attorney David Miles said that, along with Hopkins and his girlfriend, Hopkins’ mother and two other people were at the house that day.

“It is the defense position that the injuries to (the victim) and the fetus did not take place (at that residence),” Miles told jurors. “(She) was unharmed when she left the residence. She suffered injuries after she left the residence.”

Sluk said Hopkins and his girlfriend talked, became intimate and talked about the baby that she was going to name London.

“He grabbed (her) by the back of her head, slammed her to the ground and started kicking her, stomping her and slammed her on her stomach,” Sluk said. “She tried to protect her baby, but he didn’t stop beating her.”

Sluk said after the beating, she got out of the house and was found by passers-by in the middle of a street with one shoe on, crying and vomiting.

The unborn baby girl’s skull was fractured in two places and the placenta was badly damaged, Sluk said. Hopkins’ girlfriend was in a coma and had her uterus and gall bladder removed during nearly a month in the hospital, the prosecutor said.

Hopkins was found guilty of aggravated assault and having weapons under disability after a 2013 incident in which he shot at a woman who was carrying his child. The woman was not hurt.

The trial continues Tuesday morning in the courtroom of Judge Richard Skelton.

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