The new beachside arrest revived a timeline that began with a family argument in Ohio more than 11 years ago.
CANTON, Ohio — The arrest of Anthony Benjamin Grove on a Florida beach in March returned public attention to a case that started in Canton in 2015, when authorities said a ceramic coffee mug thrown during an argument struck his 2-month-old son, Zeeland, and fatally injured him.
Seen in sequence, the case is less about one dramatic arrest than about a chain of events spanning a child’s death, a plea deal, an eight-year prison sentence, a release from custody, parole supervision and a new arrest in another state. That long timeline is why the latest development carries more weight than a routine fugitive pickup.
The first major date was Feb. 9, 2015. Authorities said Grove and the child’s mother were arguing at their Canton home when he threw a ceramic mug at her while she was holding the infant. The mug missed her and hit the baby. The mother took the child and two other children to her mother’s home in Akron and called 911, according to earlier reporting on the case. The baby was taken to Akron Children’s Hospital and died afterward. Grove was charged the next day, and the original charge was murder. At that early stage, the case fit the pattern of a fast-moving fatal child abuse investigation: a home argument, emergency care, a dead infant and a defendant taken into custody while police and prosecutors decided how to frame the allegation.
The second phase came in court. Rather than go to trial on the murder charge, Grove pleaded guilty in 2015 to involuntary manslaughter and child endangering. He was sentenced to eight years in prison. That plea settled the criminal case, but it did not end state control over him forever. Public Ohio corrections records show he entered prison in June 2015 and was later released in 2023. Those same records now list him as under Adult Parole Authority supervision and a violator at large. Public reporting tied the warrant to October 2025, indicating that after release, Grove again came under scrutiny, this time not for the infant’s death itself but for allegedly failing to follow the conditions attached to his return to the community. The exact triggering act for the parole violation has not been fully detailed in the public record reviewed for this report.
The third phase unfolded far from Ohio. On March 21, 2026, Volusia County deputies were patrolling spring break crowds in Daytona Beach when they encountered Grove sitting near another man on a seawall. Chief Deputy Brian Henderson later said deputies had first approached because of an open container issue involving the other man. Once they ran Grove’s information, they found the Ohio warrant. Henderson also said Grove had mentioned that one of his children had died, drawing sympathy until deputies realized he had been convicted in that child’s death. Video released by the sheriff’s office showed a calm roadside-style exchange before Grove was placed under arrest. Florida authorities then added local charges, including failure to properly register as a convicted felon and possession of cannabis under 20 grams.
The current phase is procedural but still unsettled. Florida has its own criminal case to handle based on the beach encounter, while Ohio has the stronger long-term interest because the warrant is tied to parole supervision from the old homicide-related case. Extradition is the bridge between those two tracks. The arrest also revived public arguments about whether the 2015 plea and sentence were enough, whether post-release supervision worked as intended, and how a man wanted by Ohio ended up being found by deputies during a spring break operation in another state. Those are political and policy questions as much as legal ones, and they sit beside the unchanging fact at the center of the file: a 2-month-old child died after being hit by an object thrown during an adult dispute.
The story’s emotional force still comes from that original loss, but its current shape comes from paperwork, records checks and interstate enforcement. The old AP report captured the decisive court moment in 2015, when Grove admitted guilt and accepted an eight-year sentence. The Florida arrest changed the frame again. It turned a closed-looking case into an unfinished one, with new scrutiny on the years after prison and on the mechanisms meant to track a released offender. For the child’s name to return to public headlines more than a decade later is itself a sign that the case did not vanish after sentencing. It moved through stages, and the March beach arrest pulled all of them back into one timeline.
For now, the latest chapter remains open, with Florida custody and Ohio’s return request standing as the next events that could reshape the record.
Author note: Last updated April 18, 2026.