The father’s 20-year sentence came after prosecutors tied the child’s death to missed treatment, drug exposure and years of instability.
SPOTSYLVANIA COUNTY, Va. — The death of 2-year-old Cinceir “CJ” Croxton Jr. became a criminal case long before sentencing because records described a child with serious health needs, a welfare complaint in infancy and a final hospital visit that exposed cocaine in his system.
When Judge William Glover sentenced CJ’s father, Cinceir Croxton, to 20 years in prison in March 2026, the ruling reflected more than the events of one day in a motel room. Prosecutors had assembled a record of missed medical care, unsafe living conditions and agency contact that never led to sustained intervention. That broader history mattered because the state’s theory was that CJ did not die from one isolated act. He died after living in conditions that grew more dangerous over time.
CJ had sickle cell disease and needed treatment every two months, according to reporting on the case, but he was not receiving that care. The public record also shows Child Protective Services began investigating when he was about 6 months old after a complaint that Croxton would leave the baby alone in a car seat with loud music playing when he cried because the father could not “tolerate him crying.” The agency later lost contact with the family after they moved, and the case was marked incomplete. Those details gave prosecutors a timeline that reached back well before the criminal charges. It also gave the court a window into how warning signs can exist without leading to a lasting protective response.
The final emergency came Dec. 7, 2023, when CJ was found unconscious while the family was staying at an Econo Lodge in Spotsylvania. He was taken to a hospital, where doctors found cocaine in his system and contacted law enforcement. The hospital also determined that he had salmonella, which reporting on the case said can be carried by snakes. Accounts from the investigation said the parents refused treatment when medical staff tried to address the salmonella infection. By then, the child’s chronic illness, the drug finding and the infection all converged in a single crisis. Public reporting has not resolved every medical question about how those conditions interacted in the hours before his death, but prosecutors argued together they showed deep and repeated neglect.
Investigators who went to the motel room found conditions that reinforced that argument. Reporting from the hearing said deputies found cocaine residue on a PlayStation, cocaine in an unlocked safe and about $4,000 in cash. Authorities also recovered about 70 grams of cocaine. Witnesses described snakes in a Pack ’n Play and unsecured firearms in the room. Those findings helped explain why the prosecution treated the hospital test results as part of a wider environment rather than a mystery with no setting. The court heard not only that CJ was ill and exposed, but that he had been living among drugs, weapons and reptiles while his medical needs went untreated. That combination turned the case from a tragic death inquiry into a murder and abuse prosecution.
The legal process unfolded over many months. Croxton and the boy’s mother, Kahleighya Coleman, were arrested in August 2024. Croxton later pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, child abuse and drug charges. Under a plea agreement reached in October 2025, firearm and child endangerment counts were dropped and his prison exposure was capped at 20 years. Coleman pleaded guilty separately to second-degree murder and child abuse charges and received a 15-year prison sentence. The plea structure meant the court never held a full trial on the disputed facts, but it did produce formal admissions that allowed the judge to sentence both parents without asking a jury to decide guilt.
At the sentencing hearing, the judge’s language focused on accumulation. Croxton said he loved his son “dearly,” but Glover said CJ’s living situation “inevitably” killed him and told the father, “It was a series of choices you made.” Those remarks closely matched the state’s long-view account of the case. From the early CPS complaint to missed sickle cell treatment to the motel room search, the record pointed toward recurring failures rather than one sudden lapse. In that sense, the sentence was also a judgment about duration. The court did not see a short emergency that spiraled out of control. It saw a child living for months, and perhaps longer, inside conditions that were already unsafe.
With both parents sentenced, the public case is no longer centered on what happened next in court but on what the record now shows about CJ’s short life: untreated illness, an incomplete welfare investigation, a motel-room collapse and a judge’s conclusion that the danger around him was built over time.
Author note: Last updated April 15, 2026.