8-month-old's death from blunt force trauma

Murder charge in Troy 8-month-old's death filed against dad

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By Lou Grieco, Staff Writer Updated 8:48 AM Wednesday, July 28, 2010

TROY — At his 2007 sentencing for scalding a one-month-old boy, Jason E. Durig pleaded ignorance.

“I didn’t know what to do,” Durig told Miami County Common Pleas Judge Robert Lindeman. “What I am guilty of, basically, is being inexperienced.”

Now Durig and his wife, Tara, are both charged with child endangering in connection with the death of their 8-month-old son Caleb on Monday.

“His nose is like completely clogged with blood,” his mother Tara told a 911 dispatcher on Monday. “We don’t know what happened.”

The Miami County Coroner’s Office ruled his death a homicide, finding that the boy died from multiple blunt force trauma, said Troy police Capt. Chris Anderson.

Anderson said authorities don’t know how long the boy had been dead when his mother called 911.

Miami County Municipal Judge Mel Kemmer set cash bonds at $50,000 each Tuesday.

No additional charges were filed Tuesday afternoon after the autopsy. County Prosecutor Gary Nasal said the case was still under investigation.

Tara Durig called Miami County 911 at 11:42 a.m. to report that Caleb was not breathing, according to Troy Police Capt. Joe Long.

When the call starts, a male voice, presumably Jason Durig, says “he’s cold.” Tara Durig tells the dispatcher that her husband is performing CPR on the boy.

She tells the dispatcher that they last checked on him about 10:30 a.m. and the boy was fine. Later, her husband said the boy wasn’t breathing, she said.

“Can they do anything?” Tara Durig asks. “He’s not blue yet.”

Jason Durig was in state prison July 2007 and was released in November 2008 for convictions of child endangering in the scalding case, plus unrelated charges of tampering with evidence and theft, said JoEllen Smith, spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.

Efforts to reach Miami County Children’s Services were unsuccessful. However, Ann Stevens, spokeswoman for the Montgomery County Department of Job and Family Services said child protection officials are limited by both resources and legal jurisdiction.

“We cannot keep a case open indefinitely,” Stevens said. “We don’t have a police state. You can’t just have a government agency involved in your life forever.”

During Jason Durig’s sentencing, the judge noted that the burns occurred “at least one to two days” before doctors examined the boy.

Durig told Lindeman that the remarks in the medical report were “not true” and that he called the child’s pediatrician for guidance, who told him to take the child to Children’s. Instead, the Durigs took the boy to Upper Valley Medical Center near Troy because they didn’t have gas money to get to Dayton, Durig told Lindeman.

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