CLAYTON, Mo. – A Riverview man remains jailed after being accused of beating his own son to death.
According to Sgt. Tracy Panus, a spokeswoman for the St. Louis County Police Department, officers were sent to the 400 block of Thrift Avenue on May 2 for a child injury. The child’s father, Victor Pickering, told police his three-year-old son fell approximately two to three feet off the back steps.
The boy was rushed to a local hospital, where doctors discovered the child had suffered serious head injuries, abdominal injuries, bruises all over his body, a lacerated liver, lacerated pancreas, a possible bowel injury, mesenteric bleed, retinal hemorrhaging, acute right clavicle fracture, frontal subdural hematoma, and cerebral edema.
The child died as a result of those injuries on May 9.
Doctors indicated that those injuries were in no way consistent with the story Pickering had told police, and that the child suffered non-accidental trauma and maltreatment. Pickering was then arrested.
The St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office charged Pickering with abuse or neglect of a child resulting in death. Pickering is being held at the St. Louis County Justice Center on a $500,000 cash-only bond.
Prosecutors said Pickering is currently on probation for domestic assault in Benton County, Missouri.
