Levi Higgins-Green’s seven guilty pleas covered the child’s killing and separate crimes authorities said reflected years of violence involving household members.
CHARLESTON, Ore. — The murder of a 9-year-old boy led Oregon investigators beyond the fatal stabbing itself and into a wider examination of violence inside his home, eventually producing seven guilty pleas against the child’s father and a life sentence with a minimum exceeding three decades.
The Coos County Sheriff’s Office said investigators uncovered instances of domestic violence involving other adults and children living at the Cape Arago Highway residence and determined that some of the conduct occurred over years. Authorities have not identified those surviving family members, citing their request for privacy. The findings emerged from the investigation into the boy’s Sept. 28, 2025, death and ultimately contributed to a prosecution that included assault, strangulation and criminal-mistreatment offenses alongside the second-degree murder charge.
Levi Higgins-Green pleaded guilty Aug. 31 to second-degree murder, strangulation constituting domestic violence, second-degree assault constituting domestic violence, two counts of third-degree assault and two counts of first-degree criminal mistreatment. Judge Martin Stone accepted the pleas. The sheriff’s office said Stone imposed 80 months for the six offenses other than murder, plus a life sentence carrying a 300-month minimum for the murder conviction. The terms amount to a combined minimum of 380 months, or 31 years and eight months.
That charge list gives the final case a broader shape than the first emergency call suggested. Deputies went to the Charleston-area home after receiving a report that a child had been stabbed with a spear. The information at the scene described an accident: the boy’s sister was said to have stabbed him while the children were playing. Emergency personnel treated the child and transported him to Bay Area Hospital, where he died. The sheriff’s office later announced that investigators had determined Higgins-Green was the person who stabbed his son.
The homicide investigation continued for several days before detectives acted against the father. On Oct. 3, 2025, they executed a search warrant at Higgins-Green’s residence and arrested him on a second-degree murder charge. Officials have not released a detailed inventory of evidence obtained through the warrant or explained publicly which findings first caused investigators to challenge the accident account. The agency’s public statements instead mark the outcome of that work: detectives concluded the fatal stabbing was committed by the father and later identified other violence affecting people in the home.
The additional convictions are therefore central to understanding the sentencing rather than side issues appended to a murder case. Strangulation and second-degree assault were specifically designated as domestic-violence offenses in the sheriff’s account. Two third-degree assault convictions and two first-degree criminal-mistreatment convictions were also included. Authorities have not published a count-by-count narrative identifying each victim or describing each incident, an omission consistent with their decision to protect surviving relatives’ identities.
The lack of those identifying details prevents a full public reconstruction of the household’s history. It also avoids putting surviving children at the center of coverage about conduct for which Higgins-Green has now accepted criminal responsibility. The sheriff’s office has said only that other adults and children were involved in the domestic-violence findings and that the conduct occurred over a period of years. No names beyond Higgins-Green’s and the officials involved in the prosecution were included in the sentencing announcement.
The boy who was killed also was not named in that announcement. Authorities have reported his age, the location of the emergency response and the fact that he was fatally stabbed, but they have kept much of the family’s personal information outside the public record. That approach leaves the criminal case to be understood mainly through the investigation, the formal offenses and the sentence rather than through biographical details about the child or surviving relatives.
One secondary report, citing court documents, said a sibling told investigators Higgins-Green stabbed the boy after becoming angry during a Pokémon game. That report may help explain what investigators were told about the immediate circumstances, but the sheriff’s public sentencing statement does not identify a motive. Without the underlying court document in the agency materials, the reported dispute is best understood as an attributed account of events preceding the stabbing, not as a complete official explanation for why the killing occurred.
The prosecution ended in guilty pleas rather than a trial, limiting how much additional evidence entered the public record. At a trial, prosecutors could have presented witnesses, forensic evidence and a detailed chronology to prove their allegations beyond a reasonable doubt. Higgins-Green’s admissions made such a trial unnecessary. The pleas established his responsibility for all seven offenses, allowing the case to proceed to judgment and sentencing without jurors hearing the state’s full evidentiary presentation.
The resulting sentence was divided between the murder and non-murder crimes. The 80-month portion imposed for the six additional convictions is significant because it extends the minimum period beyond the 25 years attached to the life sentence on second-degree murder. The sheriff’s office calculated the combined minimum as 380 months. Some national coverage later described the minimum as 30 years and eight months, but 380 months converts to 31 years and eight months, which is the figure supported by the local sentencing announcement.
Some reports also mischaracterized two of the convictions as criminal mischief. The sheriff’s release identifies them as first-degree criminal mistreatment. That correction is especially relevant to the broader household-violence aspect of the case because criminal mistreatment, as listed by authorities, formed part of the group of offenses for which Stone imposed the additional 80 months. Reporting the correct charge list preserves the distinction between the murder itself and the other criminal conduct addressed by the pleas.
Multiple agencies took part in the investigation and emergency response, including Oregon State Police, Coos Bay police, Eugene police, Kids Hope Center, Charleston Fire Department and Bay Cities Ambulance, according to the sheriff’s office. District Attorney Jody Newby prosecuted the case. The combination of law enforcement, emergency medical responders and a child-focused organization reflects how the investigation grew from the death of one child into a case involving allegations and ultimately convictions connected to other members of the household.
What remains undisclosed is substantial. Officials have not released a full chronology of the earlier domestic-violence incidents, identified the people harmed in those crimes, published a detailed explanation of the evidence recovered during the search or announced a definitive motive for the killing. Those unknowns do not alter the central adjudicated facts: Higgins-Green pleaded guilty to murdering his son and to six additional offenses involving violence or mistreatment, and Stone imposed the combined sentence described by the sheriff’s office.
The surviving family members remain unnamed, and authorities have not announced further prosecutions arising from the case. Higgins-Green’s guilty pleas brought the criminal proceeding against him to a close while leaving the sheriff’s broader finding intact: the investigation of the boy’s death revealed violence in the home that officials said had extended beyond one fatal night and over a period of years.
Author note: Last updated October 21, 2026.