Left inset: James VanderLeest (Brown County Jail). Center inset: Leo Escalante (GoFundMe). RIght inset: David VanderLeest (Brown County Jail). Background: James VanderLeest’s home on the east side of Green Bay, Wis., where Leo Escalante allegedly suffered life-threatening injuries (WFRV/YouTube).
A Wisconsin man allegedly killed his 2-year-old son and then tried to get his own father to take the fall for it, along with getting help from him to evade arrest — later telling cops the child fell down a flight of stairs while his dad was watching him, according to prosecutors.
Police say James VanderLeest, 21, claimed his son Leo Escalante fell down a flight of stairs while his father, David VanderLeest, 48, was watching him on June 22. The boy’s autopsy, however, lists his cause of death as being the result of an “acute incident” and not a fall, according to Fox affiliate WLUK.
James VanderLeest has not been formally charged yet but is expected to face multiple felonies related to Escalante’s death. The young man’s father is also behind bars and set to be charged for allegedly helping his son flee and hide in a relative’s cabin while cops were looking for him, WLUK reports.
David VanderLeest says he was trying to stop his son James from dying by suicide, and was not doing anything to intentionally obstruct the police investigation.
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“There was 20 to 25 minutes that David and James stayed in the house barricading themselves and weren’t coming out until they did a flash bomb,” said Florence County Deputy District Attorney Wendy Lemkuil in court this week, per WLUK.
“To indicate he was anything other than obstructive is ridiculous,” Lemkuil said.
James and David VanderLeest both appeared in court Monday, with the younger man’s bail being set at $2 million and David VanderLeest getting a $100,000 cash bond. The elder VanderLeest claimed he was never at his son’s house, as police allege he was, when Leo suffered his fatal injuries.
“The facts in this case are what they are,” David VanderLeest said. “My statement, the written statement I gave, did not say that I was there. It did not say that, you could read the statement if it wasn’t sealed. Never in the statement did it say I was at the house.”
David VanderLeest added, “We’re allowing prosecutors just to lie against the VanderLeest family, it’s normally what happens in this town.”
He that James VanderLeest was not trying to evade arrest, nor did he know an arrest warrant was out for his son.
“I did not leave with my child after this horrible accident happened to our family,” David VanderLeest said in court. “My child was very suicidal. I went and found him to make sure I didn’t find him hanging from a tree.”
According to reports, James VanderLeest has at least four other open cases in Brown County based on charges of strangulation and suffocation, disorderly conduct, misdemeanor and felony bail jumping, criminal damage to property, and battery as domestic abuse.
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Escalante’s mother reportedly had an order of protection against James VanderLeest.
“James actually told her to say that his dad was the one who was there with the child at the time,” Lemkuil said.
James VanderLeest is due back in court on July 16, while David VanderLeest is set to appear July 17.
“Because of him being able to run for his life to a cabin in the woods with his dad, my nephew doesn’t get to run on this Earth again,” Keri Tucker, the aunt of Escalante’s mother, told WLUK. “For that, you need to stay in those brick walls, James.”
