When little Julian Woody was born in February 2007, he came ahead of schedule and lit up his mother?s life.
“I remember him as a beautiful baby boy,” Alisia Woody said.
But before Julian could turn 3 weeks old, he met a gruesome demise ? when his father, Kenneth Ryan, 21, got high from “huffing” a can of computer cleaner and beat the boy to death.
“I buried my son before he was even supposed to be born,” a tearful Woody said Tuesday in Baltimore County Circuit Court, where Judge Robert Dugan sentenced Ryan to 30 years in prison. “Looking at my16-day-old son with his head swollen to the size of a cantaloupe is an image burned into my mind forever.”
Baltimore County Deputy State?s Attorney Leo Ryan said Julian was struck in the head more than four times on Feb. 26, 2007.
Police said the newborn had a black eye and a disfigured head when they found him unresponsive at Julian?s Dundalk home.
In interviews Ryan admitted he was the only one with Julian at the time the injuries were sustained, police said.
He could not recall how he caused the injuries because he had taken a large huff from a can of Dust-Off computer cleaner, causing him to black out temporarily just before he injured his son, according to police.
At court Tuesday, Ryan?s mother, Ellen, said her son?s life took a turn for the worse when he got mixed up with drugs and alcohol in middle school.
She read aloud an essay Kenneth Ryan wrote as a teenager.
“My challenge is sobriety,” he wrote. “… I struggle with this challenge every day.”
Ryan told the judge he didn?t know what happened the night he killed his son.
“I offer no excuse,” he said. “What happened was inexcusable. … I failed. I failed when it mattered most. I loved Julian. … He was the most beautiful baby boy ever born.”
Then he turned to Alisia, who was sitting in the courtroom behind him, crying.
“Alisia, I?m so sorry,” he said. “I?m so sorry.”
