A 29-year-old man has been sentenced to 92 years in an Indiana state correctional facility for drowning his three-month-old baby boy in a bucket of laundry detergent. Eliasard Moneus cruelly left his son, Jacob, in the vat of detergent, sealing the lid and abandoning the infant to perish in the liquid.
Moneus faced charges for assaulting his wife with a tyre iron after killing his son. He received a 62-year sentence for Jacob’s murder and an additional 30 years for attempting to murder his wife, Edlie. The sentences are to be served consecutively.
An affidavit disclosed that Jacob was found deceased in a dark-colored liquid inside an orange bucket after the lid was removed. An autopsy confirmed the cause of death as asphyxia due to immersion in detergent. Tippecanoe County Deputy Prosecutor Elyse Madigan described the incident as one of the most horrific crimes she had encountered.
Moneus deliberately submerged his infant son in detergent, allowing him to drown while ingesting 100 ml of the toxic substance. Madigan revealed that Moneus wanted to teach his wife a lesson about respecting men and was willing to face the consequences, even if it meant spending the rest of his life behind bars.
Tippecanoe Superior Court Judge Steve Meyer handed down the sentence following Moneus’s guilty plea to one count of murder. Despite expressing remorse through an interpreter, Moneus was condemned by Judge Meyer for his heinous actions.
The investigation began when Lafayette Police responded to a domestic violence incident involving Moneus’s wife, who had suffered a fractured skull. She reported being assaulted by Moneus with a tyre iron or wrench before he fled with their infant son. Jacob was later found in an orange bucket with a sealed lid after a search of the property.
Moneus confessed to assaulting his wife but claimed ignorance about his son’s whereabouts. Subsequent searches led to the discovery of Jacob in the kitchen, submerged in detergent in the sealed bucket next to the trash can.