Kenton Hamilton (Cobb County Sheriff’s Office).
A Georgia father is behind bars and facing a litany of charges after his toddler son was found drowned in a bathtub late last week.
Kenton Hamilton, 47, currently stands accused of one count each of murder in the second degree, second-degree cruelty to children, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, and felony cocaine possession, according to Cobb County Sheriff’s Office records.
The defendant was arrested the morning after his son died.
The incident occurred on the night of Aug. 1 at a house in Kennesaw, a northwest suburb of Atlanta, Peach State law enforcement say.
Officers with the Kennesaw Police Department responded to a 911 call about an unresponsive child at a residence on Windsor Court, according to warrants obtained by Atlanta-based NBC affiliate WXIA.
Emergency medical crews arrived just before 9 p.m. and attempted lifesaving measures on the 17-month-old child — but those efforts, by then, were in vain. The boy was taken to Wellstar Kennestone Hospital, where doctors pronounced him dead.
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Investigators followed up on the child’s death at both the residence and the hospital, according to documents filed in the case.
Hamilton allegedly told officers that he fell asleep on the couch with his son sleeping on his chest, did not realize the child had left, and only woke up later when a friend roused him. After the boy was found, he said, the two adults decided to call 911.
The defendant would later tell investigators the not-yet-2-year-old boy “walked up two flights of stairs, climbed into the bathtub, and turned the water to the tub on and drowned,” according to an arrest warrant obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
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The child is not being identified, however, law enforcement did confirm the deceased was Hamilton’s son. A second child, 4 years old, was also sleeping on the couch at the time, police reportedly said.
A search of the house allegedly uncovered two baggies of cocaine underneath the couch cushions where both children and Hamilton had been sleeping, police said. Several firearms were also reportedly found inside the home. Hamilton, however, is not supposed to be around guns because he is a convicted felon, according to Cobb County court records.
The defendant has a statutory rape conviction from 1995. Cobb County records show a series of additional charges against a man with the same name — the latest being a family violence conviction in 2021.
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Hamilton is slated to appear in court for a bond hearing on Aug. 21. He does not yet have a defense attorney, jail records show.
A Cobb County court worker told Law&Crime the case was too recent to be reflected on the public docket as of this writing.
Law&Crime reached out to the Kennesaw Police Department for additional details on this story.
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