Left: Jacob Moneus (Lafayette Police Department) Right: Eliasard Moneus (Tippecanoe County Jail).
A 29-year-old man in Indiana will likely spend the rest of his life behind bars for drowning his 3-month-old child, placing the newborn in a “bucket of laundry detergent” before sealing the lid and leaving the boy to die.”
Tippecanoe Superior Court Judge Steve Meyer on Tuesday ordered Eliasard Moneus to serve 92 years in a state correctional facility for the cruel death of young Jacob Moneus, prosecutors confirmed to Law&Crime.
Moneus in May pleaded guilty to one count of murder as well as one count of attempted murder, the latter charge stemming from attacking his wife with a tire iron after killing his son, court records show. Specifically, he was sentenced to 62 years for the murder and 30 years for the attempted murder, with the sentences to run consecutively, or one after the other.
During the sentencing hearing, prosecutors described the horrific circumstances of the murder to the judge.
“It doesn”t really get worse than this,” Tippecanoe County Deputy Prosecutor Elyse Madigan said, according to a report from the Journal & Courier. “A father put his 3-month-old son face down in a bucket of laundry detergent, sealed the lid, left his son to die, and then went to the next room and viciously attacked the baby’s mother. Jacob drowned in the bucket swallowing 100 ml of detergent while he died.”
Madigan reportedly explained that Moneus was motivated to kill the newborn because he wanted to teach his wife “a lesson” about being disrespectful to men.
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“The defendant wanted to teach Edlie and women a lesson,” the prosecutor said, referring to the defendant’s wife by name. “You can’t disrespect a man. The defendant said repeatedly he didn’t care what the consequences were. He could not live without teaching Edlie a lesson, and he didn’t care if he spent the rest of his life in prison, which is exactly where he belongs.”
Moneus, through an interpreter — the defendant doesn’t speak English, only French Creole, according to the report — apologized for the pain he’d caused, but the words had little effect on the judge, who also lambasted the convicted child killer.
“You killed your own child,” Meyer reportedly said. “I can’t think of a worse crime. This is one of the most grotesque murders I have ever had to see. The thought of putting a 3-month-old upside down into a bucket of laundry detergent is unimaginable.”
According to a probable cause affidavit obtained by Law&Crime, officers from the Lafayette Police Department at about noon on Aug. 10, 2024, responded to a hospital for a domestic violence incident involving Moneus’ wife. The wife, who suffered a fractured skull, told police that her husband of nearly a year beat her with a tire iron or wrench and then took off with their 3-month-old son.
Authorities responded to the home and found blood spatter and other evidence indicating that an assault took place, but police did not find Jacob.
Moneus was located and arrested the following day. In an interview with detectives, he admitted to attacking his wife and hitting her multiple times, but told investigators that he didn’t know the whereabouts of his son.
On Aug. 11, 2024, investigators conducted another search of the home and located Jacob ” in an orange bucket with a snap seal lid.”
“The orange bucket had the lid attached to the bucket and was located next to the trash can in the kitchen,” the affidavit stated. “A young male infant believed to be [Jacob] was located deceased in a dark-colored liquid inside of the orange bucket once the lid was removed. A subsequent autopsy determined that the boy died of asphyxia from being immersed in the detergent.
David Harris contributed to this report.
