Bentlee Myers was already unresponsive when a visiting educator arrived, while prosecutors later said his caregiver had not called for emergency help.
UNIONTOWN, Pa. — The emergency response that eventually led to a Pennsylvania murder conviction did not begin with the woman caring for 2-year-old Bentlee Myers. It began when a Head Start teacher entered the family’s Springhill Township home and realized the toddler was in life-threatening distress.
The teacher’s Aug. 16, 2024, 911 call became a dividing line in a case that investigators would spend the next two years reconstructing. Before it were Bentlee’s injuries, the conduct inside the home and a series of internet searches later recovered from caregiver Brianna Bloyer’s phone. After it came emergency treatment, a homicide investigation, arrests, extensive court proceedings and a jury trial. Bloyer was eventually convicted of third-degree murder, and on Aug. 27, 2026, Judge Joseph George Jr. sentenced her to 20 to 40 years in prison, the maximum punishment prosecutors sought.
The teacher, Amy Downing, had not gone to the Old Lake Lynn Road residence because of Bentlee. Testimony at an earlier hearing showed she was there for an appointment involving another child in the household. She encountered Bloyer upset about Bentlee’s condition and was directed to him. The toddler was unresponsive, and emergency testimony later described him as not breathing with bluish coloring. Downing called 911 and began efforts to help. The response brought medical personnel into a situation authorities would soon view not as a sudden childhood accident but as the endpoint of repeated physical injury.
By the time Bentlee reached WVU Medicine Ruby Memorial Hospital in Morgantown, West Virginia, doctors were dealing with a severe brain injury. Court records and later trial reports described widespread bruising as well as cuts and other trauma in different stages of healing. Bentlee did not recover. He was declared brain dead and died Aug. 19, three days after Downing summoned help. Authorities determined that blunt force trauma to the head caused his death. Those medical findings gave police a second timeline to study: some injuries appeared older than the fatal episode, raising questions about what had happened while the child was in Bloyer’s care before Aug. 16.
Bloyer’s statements supplied investigators with several pieces of that timeline. She initially said Bentlee had been staying with her for roughly two weeks and described him stumbling and collapsing after he woke on the morning he was found unresponsive. State police later testified that she admitted becoming angry with the child and throwing him from the kitchen area toward the living room, where she heard a thud. District Attorney Mike Aubele said in a post-trial interview that Bloyer acknowledged tossing Bentlee and that the child struck his head hard. Downing testified that Bloyer told her Bentlee had hit his head on a coffee table.
For prosecutors, the question was not merely which version of events was correct. They also focused on what Bloyer did after the child was hurt. Aubele said she did not call an ambulance. He estimated that at least 20 minutes and perhaps up to an hour passed before Downing entered the home and began CPR. Investigators found no 911 call from Bloyer’s phone on the day of the fatal injury. That gap took on greater importance when police examined the same device and found that someone had used it shortly before the emergency call to search for information about helping a person regain consciousness.
The phone also carried a record from earlier days that prosecutors said corresponded with injuries found on Bentlee. Searches included questions about making bruises fade quickly and “homemade bruise cream.” Another asked how long a carpet imprint on a face would take to disappear. The state introduced those queries as evidence that Bloyer knew the toddler had visible injuries before the final medical emergency. The searches were particularly important because they preceded the 911 response rather than following it. Prosecutors used their timing to connect the digital record to medical evidence showing that some of Bentlee’s injuries were already healing when he arrived at the hospital.
The case widened as state police investigated what other adults knew. Bentlee’s father, Brett Bissett, had told investigators that he did not see the child’s bruises until the boy was at the hospital, according to earlier reports. Authorities later accused him of knowing that Bloyer had been volatile with Bentlee and of failing to protect his son despite warning signs. Prosecutors did not allege that Bissett was present when the fatal injury occurred. By Bloyer’s trial, local news organizations reported that he had cooperated with the state and pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter, leaving Bloyer’s conduct on Aug. 16 as the principal focus of the murder proceeding.
The prosecution nevertheless faced a question about the level of homicide it could prove. Bloyer was originally prosecuted under a theory that could have resulted in first-degree murder, and the district attorney’s office once planned to seek the death penalty. In March 2026, Aubele announced that he was removing capital punishment from the case but would continue pursuing a first-degree conviction. First-degree murder required prosecutors to establish the necessary intent and premeditation. The trial therefore asked jurors not only whether Bloyer caused Bentlee’s death but also which degree of criminal homicide was supported beyond a reasonable doubt.
Jurors were shown the wider record rather than simply the events surrounding the teacher’s arrival. The state presented doctors’ findings, Bloyer’s police statements, evidence of earlier injuries and records of her online activity. Prosecutors argued that those pieces showed repeated violence and awareness of the harm done to Bentlee. The defense challenged the state’s attempt to establish first-degree murder and raised objections to evidence and other trial issues. After about three hours of deliberation, the jury found Bloyer guilty of third-degree murder instead of the first-degree charge prosecutors had sought.
The verdict produced sharply different but not incompatible reactions from the two sides. Aubele said prosecutors would have preferred a first-degree murder conviction but were satisfied that the jury found Bloyer guilty of murder. Defense attorney Gregory Kunkel emphasized that jurors had rejected first-degree murder and said the defense would review several legal objections after the case reached sentencing. Third-degree murder still carried the possibility of a lengthy prison term. Prosecutors soon announced they would ask George to impose the maximum available punishment.
At the Aug. 27 sentencing, the judge did so, ordering Bloyer to serve 20 to 40 years. Aubele later thanked the law enforcement agencies, emergency medical workers, WVU Children’s Hospital staff, witnesses and Bentlee’s relatives who participated in the investigation and prosecution. The sentence arrived more than two years after the brief 911 call that first brought outside help into the home. It also underscored how many kinds of evidence had accumulated after that moment, from hospital records to cellphone activity to testimony about what adults had seen before the toddler’s death.
The emergency timeline remains one of the clearest ways to understand the case. Investigators said Bentlee suffered a serious head injury while Bloyer was responsible for him. Bloyer did not make the emergency call. Her phone had been used to seek information about restoring consciousness. A visiting teacher arrived independently, recognized that the boy was in danger and summoned help. Doctors then found both the devastating injury that would cause his death and signs of earlier trauma. Those events did not alone determine the degree of murder, but they formed the backbone of the facts prosecutors presented to jurors.
Currently, Bloyer’s 20-to-40-year sentence is in effect following her third-degree murder conviction. The defense previously indicated that it would examine possible appellate issues after the trial. Unless a court later alters the judgment, the criminal case that began with Downing’s 911 call has ended at the trial level with a murder conviction and the maximum prison term available for that offense.
Author note: Last updated September 21, 2026.