North Texas man learns his sentence for killing 10-week-old son with fractured skull
A man who authorities said killed his 10-week-old son on Dec. 21, 2018, was sentenced to life in prison Thursday, according to a news release from the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office.
Joseph Matthew Welborn, 31, pleaded guilty to injury to a child causing serious bodily injury, a first-degree felony. He was originally facing a charge of capital murder in the death of the baby, named Christian.
An autopsy in 2018 revealed Christian died from two complex skull fractures, according to the district attorney’s office.
Family members gave authorities conflicting accounts of how the injuries occurred.
Police were called to the 5200 block of Azle Avenue in Sansom Park. The baby’s maternal grandfather told investigators he was outside Welborn’s trailer home after arriving home from the store when he heard his daughter scream from inside, “He dropped the baby,” according to an arrest warrant affidavit obtained by the Star-Telegram in 2018.
According to the affidavit, the maternal grandfather said he and Welborn went into the trailer to find Christian was having trouble breathing. The grandfather said he attempted to blow into the baby’s mouth while his daughter called 911.
Authorities said in 2018 that Welborn and the baby’s mother, Rosalinda Lopez, told investigators multiple stories during different interviews, including blaming one of their other children. At one point, Lopez told investigators with the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office that Welborn was asleep when she arrived home from the store and saw their 4-year-old child drop baby Christian about three feet. She later changed her story to say Welborn was the one outside getting the groceries.
An autopsy in 2018 indicated that Christian died of two skull fractures from up to three separate impacts, injuries that would not have been caused by a fall and that the medical examiner said likely could not have been caused by a child.
The district attorney’s office said in the news release Thursday that the complex skull fractures were caused by blunt force trauma.
Prosecutors described the cause of the injuries to the jury that sentenced Welborn. “The last thing that Christian saw was his dad grabbing him and violently slamming his head” into a hard surface, Assistant District Attorney Katie Owens said.
“This is about giving Christian a voice,” Owens told jurors. “It was stolen by his own flesh and blood, his father. This sweet, innocent little baby deserved better.”
About two hours before Christian died, a Child Protective Services investigator had been at the family’s home about conducting a follow-up on a neglectful supervision complaint. The CPS investigator told investigators the baby was fine when she visited around 2:45 p.m. and that Joseph Welborn had been asleep inside the trailer during her visit, according to the arrest warrant affidavit from 2018.
This story contains information from the Star-Telegram’s archives.
