Teenage father sentenced for death of young son | KSNF/KODE

TULSA, Oklahoma – A Delaware County man has been sentenced to more than eight years in prison for shaking his three-month-old baby to death because it was crying incessantly.

Samson Frye Jr., 24, of the Afton area, appeared in U.S. federal court in Tulsa where he was sentenced to 97 months in prison for manslaughter in Indian Country.

The infant’s persistent crying led to a frustrated Frye shaking the baby and dropping him, according to his plea agreement.

Frye had just turned 19 when he was charged with murder in Delaware County District Court in 2018, and the baby’s mother was just 17 at the time of the infant’s death, court records show.

The murder case against Frye was dismissed in January 2023 for jurisdictional reasons and he was later indicted in federal court.

The baby’s mother was never charged in state or federal court.

Both teenage parents came from broken homes, and Frye’s family and friends say the mother suffered “serious psychological problems” after the baby was born. She had “long bouts of crying and was easily frustrated” when the baby cried and “often yelled at the child,” according to the verdict.

According to court documents, Frye’s lawyers argued for a lesser sentence because he had a “difficult childhood” and his parents were “drug and alcohol addicts” and “did not provide him with a safe and stable home while he was growing up.”

As a teenager, Frye participated in sports and church activities, but at age 17 he pleaded guilty to robbery and was released on probation, court records show.

When questioned by police, both parents admitted to dropping the toddler more than once and acting carelessly in caring for their child, the report said.

The baby is said to have suffered multiple injuries, including subdural hemorrhage, retinal hemorrhage and multiple rib fractures in varying stages of healing, which, according to a medical report, were caused “by a shaking event (acceleration/deceleration) with or without impact.”

According to the records, the infant’s “injuries were not consistent with normal, accidental falls.”

During the sentencing, federal prosecutors presented six phone conversations between Henderson and Frye in which he begged Henderson to say she was responsible for the baby’s death.

What happened?

On November 9, 2018, Frye’s infant son was admitted to Grove Integris Hospital for respiratory distress and later to Saint Francis Hospital in Tulsa, where he was placed on life support and died five days later.

Frye confessed to being awakened in the middle of the night by the baby’s crying. To stop the baby’s crying, he took it outside.

The National Weather Service in Tulsa reported that the average temperature was 43° on November 8 and 37° on November 9.

Why is it dangerous to shake a baby?

• Violent shaking lasting just a few seconds can cause serious injury. Shaking can cause injury to children of all ages, but babies are most vulnerable to injury during the first year of life. Factors that contribute to a baby’s vulnerability include:
• Babies’ heads are heavy and large in relation to their body size.
• Babies have weak neck muscles.
• Babies have fragile, underdeveloped brains.
• There is a big difference in size and strength between the victim and the perpetrator.

Source: National Center for Shaken Baby Syndrome