Mom Screamed When She Came Home To Find This Note From The Babysitter

A male babysitter left a heart-wrenching note claiming that the three-year-old boy in his care drowned while in the bathtub. Unfortunately, the autopsy revealed another truth – that the boy had been severely beaten to death. Now, 25-year-old Joshua Manns of Florida has been charged with neglecting, abusing, and killing the three-year-old boy he was charged with caring for while the boy’s mother was away at work.

According to the police, Manns called the mother of three-year-old Jameson Nance on June 11. He told the working mom that the boy had died after drowning in the bathtub. The mother rushed back home to her apartment in West Melbourne, Florida, and found the babysitter gone and only a note left behind describing what had transpired.

The bizarre handwritten note claimed that the boy had suffered a seizure while under Manns’ care and that the boy had drowned because the health crisis occurred while he was in the bathtub. According to a report from the authorities in Florida, the suspected child killer wrote in the note: “no one would believe him, and he did not want to spend his life in prison for something he did not do.”

However, the medical examiner told another story. There was no evidence that the boy had drowned. Instead, the health professional learned that the boy suffered the results of “battered child syndrome.” The medical examiner found that the boy had suffered from weeks-old injuries, including stab wounds and broken ribs. The boy’s brain was also swollen.

Back in March, Jameson suffered a broken leg. But that wasn’t the first time in his life he had one of those. When he was just a one-year-old baby, the Florida Department of Children and Family Services investigated the incident. Shortly before his untimely death, the department also went to the boy’s daycare to investigate after finding “suspicious injuries” that looked like burn marks on the boy’s arm. Could those have been from the abusive babysitter?

Manns was not the father of the boy and did not seem to be related. Instead, his connection to the boy and his mother was established because he lives in the same building as the youngster.

On the day that Jameson died, Manns fled the apartment building shortly after calling the boy’s mother. When police arrived on the scene, Manns was nowhere to be found. West Melbourne police then asked the community to help them track down Manns because he was a person of interest in the case of the boy’s death.

On June 28, two weeks after the boy’s death, Manns was caught by United States Marshalls in Georgia as he tried to flee back to his home of West Virginia with the help of family members. The West Melbourne police were able to alert the police department in Tifton, Georgia, that Manns might be hiding in their community with his family members. The Marshalls used that helpful information to track him down.

Manns has been charged with first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse. He is being held without bond because he had tried to escape the law.