A Kansas man whose two-year-old daughter died after going days without food while he was passed out drunk has been jailed for nearly 57 years.
Friday’s sentence was the maximum that could be imposed after Jeffrey Exon was convicted in April of charges that included aggravated child endangerment and first-degree murder in the commission of a felony, The Topeka Capital-Journal reported.
Exon, 47, who goes by the name of James, called 911 on January 5 2021, telling a dispatcher that his daughter, Aurora Exon, had stopped breathing.
He claimed she had been “starving herself”.
She was cold to the touch when found and appeared to have been dead for several days, Shawnee County district attorney Mike Kagay said.
The coroner blamed her death on a form of malnutrition called marasmus.
Five empty spirit bottles were found in Exon’s bedroom, investigators said.
They learned Exon would not feed or attend to his children for days because of his addiction issues.
Exon’s six-year-old son, who was four when his sister died, told a trial his father locked them in their rooms for several days without food while he “slept”.
Seonaid Nichols, the children’s mother, said she agreed to give Exon custody of the children because her living conditions did not allow her to take care of them.
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