MEMPHIS, Texas (AP) - A Texas Panhandle man has been sentenced to life in prison for the 2011 beating death of his 4-year-old son.
A Hall County jury on Thursday afternoon convicted 39-year-old Robert Monroe Babcock of capital murder. Prosecutors did not seek the death penalty, so the Clarendon-area man received an automatic sentence of life in prison without parole.
Chance Mark Jones had been living with his father since mid-December 2010 amid a child neglect investigation against the boy's mother.
Authorities believe the boy had endured sporadic assaults that began Christmas Eve 2010. Chance died Jan. 5, 2011, of blunt force trauma to the head and internal injuries a day after being taken to an Amarillo hospital.
Investigators believe Babcock used his fists to pummel his son.
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