REMEMBERING DYLAN

Dylan Lee Edmondson was only three months old when he died. At 14 weeks old, Dylan was still in the earliest days of infancy, an age when babies are beginning to become more alert to the world around them. His entire life was measured in weeks rather than years. Dylan was a son, a grandson and a deeply loved member of the Edmondson family. His father, E.J. Edmondson, would later become frustrated that the circumstances surrounding Dylan's death attracted more attention than the little boy himself. As the case became known around the country for its connection to a Facebook game, Dylan's father reminded people of what had been lost in all of those headlines. His son. Dylan was not a headline about social media. He was not a cautionary story about a computer game. He was a three month old baby whose life had barely begun. He needed to be fed, changed, held and comforted. Crying was one of the only ways he had to communicate that he needed something. He deserved for someone to answer those cries with patience and care. Dylan should have been given years to grow beyond the tiny baby seen in the photographs his family would later display in a courtroom. Instead, those photographs became some of the memories his family was left holding onto.

DYLAN'S STORY

On January 19, 2010, Dylan was at home in Jacksonville, Florida, with his 22 year old mother, Alexandra Tobias. At some point that day, Dylan began crying. Tobias was using Facebook and playing the online game FarmVille. According to the account she later gave investigators, she became angry because Dylan would not stop crying while she was playing the game. Tobias picked up her three month old son and violently shook him. She later told investigators that after shaking Dylan, she put him down and went outside to smoke a cigarette in an attempt to compose herself. Then she went back inside. And she shook Dylan again. During the assault, Tobias said Dylan may have struck his head. The injuries to the tiny baby were catastrophic. When Dylan stopped breathing, Tobias initially called his father before calling 911. During the emergency call, she told the dispatcher that her 14 week old baby was not breathing. The dispatcher attempted to guide her through rescue efforts while paramedics rushed to the home. Tobias initially gave investigators a different explanation for Dylan's injuries. She claimed that a dog had knocked Dylan from a couch, causing him to strike his head and stop breathing. Dylan was rushed to Wolfson Children's Hospital in grave condition. Doctors discovered serious injuries to his head as well as a broken leg. Dylan was alive when he reached the hospital. But his injuries were too severe. On January 20, 2010, Dylan Lee Edmondson died. An autopsy determined that Dylan had suffered abusive head trauma. Investigators no longer believed the explanation that a dog had knocked him from the couch. As detectives questioned Tobias, her account changed. She admitted that she had shaken Dylan violently multiple times. She described becoming frustrated with his crying while she was using Facebook, shaking him, stepping outside to smoke a cigarette and then returning and shaking him again. She also told investigators that Dylan's head may have struck the computer during the assault. Tobias was initially arrested on a charge of aggravated child abuse.mAfter Dylan died, the case became a murder investigation. She was charged with murder in connection with her son's death. The case quickly received national attention because of Tobias's statement that Dylan had been crying while she was playing FarmVille. But for Dylan's family, that attention created another kind of pain  His father, E.J. Edmondson, objected to seeing his son's death reduced to a story about Facebook. Because behind every headline about a computer game was a real baby. His name was Dylan Lee Edmondson.

WARNING SIGNS & MISSED OPPORTUNITIES

There had been turmoil inside Dylan's home before his death. Only weeks before Dylan was fatally injured, Tobias and Dylan's father, E.J. Edmondson, were involved in a domestic violence incident. Both adults were arrested. Dylan was inside the home when the incident occurred. Police records indicated that Florida's Department of Children and Families was supposed to be notified because an infant had been present during the domestic dispute. Later reporting raised questions about exactly what information reached the agency. DCF said it received incomplete information and did not receive the entire police report. According to the agency's account, it was not informed that Dylan had been involved in the sense of being present in the home during the incident. That distinction matters. There is not enough reliable evidence to say that child protection workers knew Dylan was being physically abused before his death or that an investigation would certainly have prevented what happened. But there was a documented domestic violence incident in the home of a very young infant only weeks before he was killed. It was a warning sign in Dylan's short life. There was another disturbing detail that emerged after his death. Approximately a month before Dylan was killed, Tobias reportedly joined a Facebook advocacy group opposing the shaking of babies. Whatever awareness she had of the danger, it did not protect Dylan when he needed protection most.

JUSTICE FOR DYLAN

Alexandra Tobias ultimately chose not to take Dylan's murder case to trial. On October 27, 2010, she pleaded guilty to second degree murder. By pleading guilty, Tobias formally accepted criminal responsibility for killing her son. Her sentencing hearing was held on February 1, 2011. Tobias asked the court for mercy. She spoke about the death of her own mother, her emotional state and the loss of Dylan. Circuit Judge Adrian Soud imposed the maximum sentence available under the applicable sentencing range. Alexandra Tobias was sentenced to 50 years in prison.

Alexandra Victoria Tobias

Relationship to Dylan: Mother

Conviction: Second degree murder

Sentence: 50 years in prison

FOREVER REMEMBERED

For years, one word followed Dylan's name through newspaper articles, television reports and discussions about his death. FarmVille. It was an easy detail for the world to remember. But it was never the most important one. Dylan's father understood that. After his son's death became nationally associated with Facebook and an online game, E.J. Edmondson objected to the way Dylan's story was being framed. Because the story was never really about a game. It was about Dylan. A baby who lived for only 14 weeks. A little boy whose photographs were projected onto a courtroom screen while the people who loved him sat together and faced the reality that those photographs could never be replaced by new ones. There would never be pictures of Dylan taking his first steps. There would be no first birthday photograph.

No first day of school. No awkward school pictures. no graduation photograph. No pictures showing the baby becoming a boy and eventually a man. The photographs Dylan's family already had became permanent pieces of a life frozen at three months old. That is why Dylan deserves to have his name separated from the sensational detail that made his case famous. A computer game did not need justice. Dylan did. A website did not lose a future. Dylan did. And his family did not lose a headline. They lost a child. Abuse Angels remembers Dylan Lee Edmondson for the life behind those photographs and for the childhood that should have followed them. We remember Dylan. We speak his name. And Dylan Lee Edmondson will not be forgotten.