In January 2023, 7-year-old Jaevion Riley was rushed to the hospital by paramedics after being savagely burned and beaten by his father, Murtadah Mohammad, who shared custody with the boy’s mother.
The child from New Hampshire, known for a smile that would “light up an entire room,” succumbed to his injuries, which were so extensive that his heart stopped twice and he had to be resuscitated.
“He died twice,” his devastated mother Rainah Riley told news outlets at the time.
On May 27, Mohammed was sentenced to 45 years behind bars for his son’s murder, but that is not nearly enough for Riley, who has accused state authorities of repeatedly ignoring her warnings. Jaevion’s murder was as shocking as it was preventable.
Just months before his death, Mohammad was granted joint custody. After seeing marks on Jaevion’s body, the worried mom said she sounded the alarm several times with the New Hampshire Division for Children, Youth and Families, but she was ignored.
“I called for wellness checks on him when he was with him, for the bruising, and nobody did anything. The system has failed not only my child, but so many children. And something needs to be done, because this isn’t OK. It’s not. Like, when is enough enough?” she told NBC10 Boston.
New Hampshire’s DCYF will not disclose any information about the case. When asked by several news outlets about the mother’s claims, the agency said they are required by law to safeguard the confidentiality of children and their caregivers.
In April, Mohammad, 27, pleaded guilty to reckless second-degree murder and falsifying physical evidence in the death of his son, per a press release issued by the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office.
During the trial, Prosecutor Peter Hinckley told the jury that Mohammad waited 12 hours before calling 911, describing the “prolonged anguish that the child endured hour after hour after hour until his young body just gave out on him.” The father then staged a spill to make his son’s horrific scalding injuries look like an accident, and allegedly told police he didn’t see what happened because he was taking a shower.
During the recent sentencing, the boy’s distraught mom can be seen crying and bent over on video, holding her head in her hands, as Judge William Delker addressed the courtroom.
Jaevion suffered through what the judge described as a “sustained campaign of abuse” over the course of five days.
“He would have had to fight for his life when he was exposed to boiling water,” Delker said, per the Union Leader. In addition to third-degree burns to 15 percent of his body, the child had a skull fracture, and his tooth had been knocked out.
“He must have screamed his heart out when you whipped and beat him, and none of that deterred you,” said Delker. “You left him to suffer and ultimately die without seeking help… I think we can only hope that at some point he lost consciousness and didn’t experience the pain for the full 12 or more hours that these crimes occurred,” he said via People.
Mohammad apologized to the boy’s mother at the sentencing, blaming it on drug and alcohol use, but Judge Delker didn’t buy it
“Even now, even when your future depends on it, you haven’t been able to bring yourself to acknowledge the full scope of what you did to that child, the full magnitude of what you did,” he said.
“His little smile would just light up an entire room, he was so, so beautiful,” Riley told 7News Boston in the days before his death. “For that to even happen to a grown adult would be sickening and to see this on a little, helpless, small 7-year-old boy who could never do anything to even deserve any type of physical punishment is disgusting. It is sickening.”
