24-year-old man shook and killed infant, charges say

A 24-year-old man is accused of shaking his newborn son in his home on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, which later caused the baby’s death.

Antonius Meyers was arrested in April on assault charges and has been in custody since then. In a statement this week, the Justice Department announced that he has been charged with murder and manslaughter.

On April 3, Meyers took his 28-day-old son to the emergency room at JBER because he was unresponsive, according to a criminal complaint filed by Anchorage Police Detective Mindy Mitchell. The baby was taken to Providence Alaska Medical Center and continued to have seizures overnight, the complaint states.

According to the lawsuit, doctors found the baby had a brain injury and also had bruises on his chest and injuries to his tongue.

Investigators questioned Meyers and his wife. Meyers initially told them he fell asleep on the couch with the baby after feeding him early that morning. However, when they woke him up after 8 a.m., the baby was unresponsive, the complaint states.

In another interview, Meyers told investigators he shook the baby, likely causing the brain injury, the indictment says. He said he had never hurt the baby before and was trying to fix things, but he “just had one hiccup and panicked,” the indictment says.

Three days after arriving at the hospital, the child was placed in an induced coma due to persistent seizures, the lawsuit says. He died on May 15, according to Justice Department spokesman Sam Curtis.

Meyers was arrested on April 13 while violating a restraining order and was charged with assault the next day, the indictment says. On June 19, he was indicted by a grand jury in Anchorage on two counts of second-degree murder, manslaughter and five counts of assault.

Meyers is being held at the Anchorage Correctional Complex on $25,000 bail. His attorney did not immediately respond to a message Tuesday.

Meyers is a member of the U.S. Army, the complaint said.