Jurors convicted Jacob Ray Wescott in the 2020 death of a 10-month-old boy known publicly as Baby Jack.
KERSHAW COUNTY, S.C. — A South Carolina man who was babysitting a 10-month-old boy when the child stopped breathing in March 2020 has been sentenced to 33 years in prison after a jury found him guilty of homicide by child abuse, authorities said.
Jacob Ray Wescott was convicted Feb. 9, and Circuit Judge Milton G. Kimpson later ordered him to serve 33 years in the South Carolina Department of Corrections. The sentence closes a criminal case that began when emergency crews were called to Wescott’s home after the infant, identified in coverage as Baby Jack, became unresponsive. Prosecutors said doctors found severe injuries, and medical experts concluded the child’s death was caused by abusive head trauma rather than an accident.
According to the Fifth Judicial Circuit Solicitor’s Office, the case began on March 9, 2020, when the Kershaw County Fire Department and the Kershaw County Sheriff’s Office were sent to Wescott’s residence after a report that a 10-month-old had stopped breathing. Emergency responders rushed the baby to Kershaw Health Emergency Room, where doctors stabilized him before transferring him to Prisma Health Children’s Hospital for more specialized care. In earlier local coverage, deputies said firefighters were performing CPR when they arrived. Wescott, who was 23 at the time of his arrest, told deputies the infant had been fed formula, that the two had fallen asleep and that the baby later began what he described as “spazzing out.” A witness inside the home called 911 after realizing the child was not breathing, according to an incident report described in local news reports.
Prosecutors said medical professionals found extensive head and body injuries, including a brain bleed and multiple bruises. The boy was taken off life support on March 11, 2020, two days after the emergency call. Authorities said medical experts and a pathologist determined the injuries were consistent with abusive head trauma, a term used in court and in medical investigations for serious head injuries inflicted on children. The solicitor’s office said detectives concluded the trauma was intentional, and jurors ultimately agreed, convicting Wescott of homicide by child abuse. Officials have not publicly laid out a detailed account of what happened in the moments before the baby became unresponsive. They also have not publicly described in detail Wescott’s relationship to the child’s family beyond identifying him as the babysitter. Reports at the time said two other minors were in the home during the emergency, but authorities did not accuse them of wrongdoing.
The case drew attention in Kershaw County because of the child’s age, the seriousness of the injuries and the long gap between the 2020 emergency and the 2026 conviction and sentencing. Sheriff Lee Boan said at the time that the investigation strained first responders and investigators as they worked through the death of an infant. He also said the sheriff’s office had been in contact with the child’s mother and would offer available support. A family fundraising page created after the boy’s death said he was cremated and that his mother had faced funeral arrangements at a time when she expected to be planning his first birthday. That public grief became part of the case’s broader context, though the criminal trial turned on medical evidence, witness accounts and the state’s argument that the injuries could not be explained by an accident or normal caregiving. By the time of the verdict, the state’s account had been narrowed to a clear claim: the baby died from intentionally inflicted trauma while in Wescott’s care.
The prosecution was handled by the Fifth Judicial Circuit Solicitor’s Office, which said Deputy Solicitors Curtis Pauling and Anna Browder, along with Assistant Solicitor Michael Bradbury, led the case. Lt. Miles Taylor of the Kershaw County Sheriff’s Office spearheaded the investigation, according to the solicitor’s office, while the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division’s Child Fatality Unit worked with local investigators. Wescott was arrested on March 11, 2020, the same day the child died, according to local reports from that time. The charge was homicide by child abuse, a serious felony under South Carolina law. The solicitor’s office announcement focused on the verdict and sentence and did not say whether Wescott plans to appeal. No future hearing date was listed in the release. As of the sentencing announcement in February 2026, the next clear milestone publicly identified in the case was Wescott’s transfer to the custody of the state prison system to begin serving the sentence imposed by Kimpson.
The public record in the case remains marked by two sharply different pictures of the same day. In Wescott’s account to deputies, the infant had been fine, had taken formula and then began choking or convulsing after the pair had fallen asleep. In the state’s case, doctors, investigators and jurors rejected the idea that the injuries came from an accident. That contrast framed the proceedings from the start. Officials did not release an extended public narrative after the sentence, but their statements pointed back to the same core facts: a baby in a babysitter’s care stopped breathing, first responders found a life-threatening emergency, doctors discovered severe internal and external injuries, and prosecutors persuaded a jury that those injuries were intentionally inflicted. Nearly six years after the 911 call, the court’s sentence gave the case its clearest public conclusion, even as some details of the child’s final hours remain outside the public record.
Wescott now faces a 33-year prison term, and the case stands publicly as closed at the trial-court level unless an appeal is filed. The key date in the public timeline remains Feb. 9, 2026, when jurors convicted him, followed by the sentence announced the same week.