With no place to live, Bloomington man convicted in baby death heading to prison

In 2019, Dakota Lee King faced a murder charge and life in prison when a two-month-old baby died in his care.

Then a judge approved a plea agreement that reduced the charge to neglect, and said King could spend his now 9-year prison sentence on house arrest if he secured a place to live.

He couldn't find one.

Monroe County Circuit Court Judge Valeri Haughton released the 21-year-old Bloomington man from the Monroe County Jail three times, for a total of six days, since September to seek housing. He was unsuccessful.

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"Mr. King has looked for a place here in Monroe County but he's not having any luck. I'm trying to come up with as many solutions as I can," his lawyer told Haughton during a January hearing.

This week, Haughton imposed the 9-year prison term and recommended a minimum security facility. With credit for time served, the sentence is five years and two months.

A December motion filed by defense attorney Phyllis Emerick asking that King be released to search for a place to live said her client understood if he couldn't find a home, "he would proceed to sentencing with the balance of the executed sentence to be served in the Department of Correction."

That happened on Monday. The judge sentenced King for the Level 3 felony, which has a maximum sentence of 16 years. She also assessed $185 in court fees and a $150 public defender fee.

Court documents say King can't live with family members in Lawrence County because he isn't eligible for the home detention program there.

Braylon Elijah Lee Mosher was two months old when he died at an apartment on West Kirkwood Avenue King shared with the child's mother. She was at work and King was caring for the baby the day he died.

The 2021 plea deal dismissed other charges filed in the case: murder, neglect of a dependent resulting in death and battery resulting in death.

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No one involved with the case would say what led to the most serious charges being dismissed and how life in prison got reduced to nine years.

Investigators said King was upset the child had spit up milk that got on King's clothes. They said he forced the infant’s face down into a pillow until he stopped crying.

“He acknowledged that Victim #1 was crying and, upon pushing his head into the pillow, that Victim #1 quit crying,” the probable cause affidavit filed in the case said.

Contact reporter Laura Lane at llane@heraldt.com, 812-331-4362 or 812-318-5967.