PORTSMOUTH, Va. WAVY) — Dontae Taylor’s stepfather says his son is innocent after the 36-year-old and his partner, Chantae Smith, were charged in the death of their 23-day old baby girl.
Tracy Tyler told 10 On Your Side his son is a gentle man and could’ve never done something like this.
“I know that he wasn’t present in the nearby vicinity when these things happened,” Tyler said. “He did not know anything about this. And this is what is so devastating to him because he did not know.”
Court documents reveal the infant’s cause of death was head trauma with broken ribs.
In those 23 days she had been alive, those ribs had been broken before.
Tyler claims the baby girl wasn’t Dontae’s biological child, but that he stepped up to be her father.
He said his son has other children who have never been hurt in his care.
“Dontae has five other children,” Tyler said. “Dontae doesn’t even whoop children, he doesn’t even spank them, or he doesn’t even believe in any type of corporal punishment for children.”
He told 10 On Your Side the whole situation has taken a toll on Dontae’s mental health.
“When the whole situation happened and the death, he was very distraught and his mental state from that point just kept breaking down,” Tyler said. “As to … when he was incarcerated for this, he kept telling me, ‘we didn’t do nothing to the child, we didn’t do nothing to the child.'”
He said all they can do now is lean on the legal system.
“There’s nothing that we can do within our power except yield to the legal system and pray that he’s not another statistic of young men that are wrongfully convicted,” he said.
He said he send his condolences and prayers to Chantae Smith’s family.
