Tulsa World: Family of dead toddler responds following boyfriend's murder charge

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Family of dead toddler responds following boyfriend's murder charge

ACCUSED OF SHAKING BABY

Roger L. Dry: Delaware County authorities say he violently shook his girlfriend's daughter, 2-year-old Emily Hernandez, after she began crying Monday. The child was hospitalized on life support and died Tuesday. He is charged with first-degree murder and set to be arraigned Thursday.

By SHEILA STOGSDILL World Correspondent
Published: 9/4/2009 12:52 PM
Last Modified: 9/4/2009 2:46 PM

Related story: Man jailed in death of toddler

JAY - The mother of a 2-year-old girl allegedly killed by her boyfriend recently lost her husband in a suspicious drowning near the Mexico border, family members said.

Emily Hernandez, of Kansas, Okla., died Tuesday at Tulsa’s St. Francis Hospital of shaken-baby syndrome after being on life support for a day, officials said.

The brown-haired, brown-eyed toddler was the world to her father, Fernando Hernandez, said Elinor Bartleson, Emily’s great-grandmother.

“He would call her his little princess,” Bartleson said of Fernando. “She was real pretty.”

Mary Bartleson, Emily’s mother, lost her own mother, Cindy Sixkiller, in January 2008 and her husband, Fernando, earlier this year, she said.

“She is understandably very upset. She thinks she is losing everything,” Bartleson said. “First her mother and then her husband and daughter both in the same year.”

Emily’s funeral services will be at the Galilean Church in Kansas, Okla., on Tuesday at 2 p.m. It’s the same church where in February family members had a memorial service for Fernando.

Mary’s boyfriend, Roger L. Dry, 35, of Eucha, is accused of killing the toddler. He is charged in Delaware County District Court with first-degree murder and is being held on $1 million bail.

Dry declined to comment on the charges based on the advice of his attorney.

“We don’t know if he (Dry) had been violent with Mary or the children,” Bartleson said, referring to 9-year-old Jessica and 2-year-old Emily.

Dry and Mary Bartleson had been living together at Mary’s rural Colcord home but broke up and were back living together again, she said.

Handcuffed and dressed in orange jail clothes, Dry appeared in court on Thursday where he waived the reading of the charges and was ordered to return on Sept. 8, court records show. According to court records, Dry confessed to authorities that while alone with Emily, the toddler began crying and wouldn’t stop, so he spanked and shook her, “telling her to shut up and be quiet,” a court affidavit states.

The toddler then vomited on Dry, so he shook her violently six or seven times, telling her to stop crying and be quiet. When Emily became quiet, Dry laid her on the bed on her stomach.

Mary Bartleson discovered her daughter was not breathing when she arrived home, the affidavit states.

An assault and battery with intent to kill charge filed Tuesday was dropped Thursday after murder charges were filed the day before. Dry also was appointed a court-appointed attorney, records show.

District Attorney Eddie Wyant said he hadn’t decided if he will seek the death penalty against Dry.

Beth Scott, a spokeswoman for the Oklahoma Department of Human Services, said she could not say whether Jessica had been removed from the home or whether there had been any previous DHS investigations. By SHEILA STOGSDILL World Correspondent

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Reader comments for this story have been moved to the most updated version of the story, now under the headline "Mother of slain 2-year-old lost husband in drowning," which was published on 9/5/2009. So far, 39 comments have been made.