He said he got high and smothered baby boy. The evidence showed something much worse

David Earl Vickers was supposed to be caring for his then-girlfriend’s children in August 2017 while she was at one of two jobs she worked. But unknown to their mother, Vickers had been abusing 17-month-old Luca Sholey.

Four days before the toddler died on Aug. 25, 2017, at John Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg, Vickers called and told her that he discovered Luca wasn’t breathing when he checked on the toddler after putting him to bed.

When he died, Luca had six broken ribs that were in different stages of healing. An autopsy determined that ribs were each broken sometime in the weeks or months leading up to his death. Some of these same ribs had been re-fractured in the days leading up to his death.

The abuse may have been going on for weeks.

But the boy’s death was the result of asphyxia, Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Vega testified during a five-day-long trial in a Bradenton courtroom last week. It was likely the result of Luca’s mouth or nose being covered or something being placed inside his mouth, he said.

After deliberating for less than three hours on Friday, a jury found Vickers guilty of second-murder and child neglect causing great bodily harm. He now faces up to life in prison. A date for his sentencing hearing has not yet been set, but it is expected to occur within the next 30 days.

“This child’s murder has been a devastating loss to the victim’s family. He was cherished by his sister, his parents and both of their families,” said a statement from assistant state attorneys Dawn Buff and Lauren Benson. “Although nothing will ever fill the void that has been left by his absence, today’s verdict will bring his family some measure of closure as they continue along the long and difficult path of healing.”

The state attorney’s office will request that Vickers be designated a Prison Release Reoffender, which under Florida law would require that he be sentenced to the maximum penalty for being convicted of murder less than three years after being released from prison.

Just three months before Luca’s death, Vickers had been released from prison after serving prison time for convictions of trafficking in stolen property and defrauding a pawnbroker. Vickers and his defense attorney admitted during the trial that he had only been out of prison for three months, so it is not expected that he will contest this finding.

Vickers took the stand, in his own defense, claiming that he had smoked some fentanyl and took out his phone to watch a video and must of fallen asleep on the bed and smothered the boy. But this claim contradicted what Vickers said to detectives repeatedly about having put the boy to sleep in his pack-and-play. In those accounts, Vickers claimed that Luca had fallen down the stairs earlier with his then 3-year-old sister.

Both Luca’s parents took the stand against Vickers, at times getting emotional when they had to identify photos of their son.

Luca was declared brain dead on Aug. 23 but was kept alive for two more days so that his organs could be donated. His organs saved the lives of two little girls and a 54-year-old man.