A 20-year-old man pleaded not guilty Monday in connection with the death of a 5-year-old boy whose body was found in or near a trash bin in Panorama City.
Brycson Malik Gaddis was charged last month with one count each of murder and assault on a child causing death involving the boy who was identified by authorities as Elyjah Hearn.
The child’s body was found July 12 in a parking lot in the 8200 block of Van Nuys Boulevard, just south of Roscoe Boulevard. .
A law enforcement source told the Los Angeles Times that the boy suffered “massive injuries,” including a broken jaw, fractured ribs and a lacerated liver. An official cause of the boy’s death has been deferred pending additional investigation, according to records from the Los Angeles County medical examiner’s office.
Gaddis was arrested July 16 by officers from the Los Angeles Police Department’s Hollywood Station and has remained jailed in lieu of $2 million bail,
Authorities have not said how Gaddis may be related to the boy, but police said Gaddis is not the boy’s biological father.
Troy Hearn Sr., identified by The Times as the boy’s grandfather, told the newspaper that Gaddis is the ex-boyfriend of the child’s mother.
Hearn said the boy’s mother was among the five people questioned by police, but she was ultimately released. Hearn said Gaddis had been stalking the boy’s mother, and he kidnapped the boy and his mother and forced them into an apartment complex near the location where the boy’s body was ultimately found.
“It’s very heartbreaking for him to do that to my 5-year-old grandson,” Hearn told The Times. “I’m identifying the body this afternoon. I’m overwhelmed and so angry that I can’t even explain it. This guy is a bad guy and it’s lucky that the police has him.”
Detectives with the LAPD’s Abused Child Unit are leading the investigation.
Police said a tip from the public led them to a “large Panorama City apartment complex in the 14500 block of Lanark (Street).”
A vigil for the young victim was taking place as police arrived July 15 at the apartment complex, less than a half-mile from where the boy’s body was found.
Then at around 1 a.m. the next day, while detectives were still collecting evidence at a second unit, LAPD personnel detained two more men and a woman near Sunset Boulevard and Ivar Avenue in Hollywood, police said.
All five adults were taken in for questioning, and the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services took custody of the two children, police said then.
Gaddis is due back in a Van Nuys courtroom Oct. 20. A date is scheduled to be set then for a hearing to determine whether there is sufficient evidence against him to allow the case to proceed to trial.