Chelsea L. Crossland appears in a jail mugshot (Indiana State Police)
A 28-year-old mother in Indiana will likely spend the rest of her life behind bars for torturing and killing her 5-year-old son, starving and beating the little boy to death in horrific fashion last year. A Jay County jury on Thursday found Chelsea L. Crossland guilty on one count of murder and one count of neglect of a dependent resulting in death over the March 2022 slaying of young Christian Crossland, court documents reviewed by Law&Crime show.
The jury subsequently recommended that Crossland serve a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. She is scheduled to appear in Jay County Circuit Court before Judge Brian Hutchinson on Aug. 24 for her formal sentencing hearing.
As previously reported by Law&Crime, officers with the Portland Police Department at about 11:30 p.m. on March 24, 2022, responded to a call about an unresponsive child at a home located in the 600 block of South Western Avenue in Portland, Indiana. Portland is just under 100 miles northeast of Indianapolis.
Upon arriving at the scene, first responders located Crossland, who told them that her son fell down the stairs and lost consciousness. He was declared deceased a short while later.
Citing the “suspicious circumstances” of the child’s death, Portland police requested that the investigation be handed over to the Indiana State Police.
Investigators said that the home where Crossland lived with the victim and her two young daughters, ages 9 and 10, was “unkempt and filthy,” and noted that when authorities arrived, the boy was “only wearing a diaper.” In court documents, prosecutors also said that Crossland failed to immediately call for help after her son was injured and talked about “disposing” of his body.
A subsequent autopsy report determined that Christian’s manner of death was a homicide and the cause of death was “complications from blunt force trauma to (his head and mouth).” The report further stated, “the child had ‘failed to thrive’ and that he was malnourished and dehydrated.”
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Two days after Christian’s death, investigators interviewed Crossland’s 9-year-old daughter who explained that Crossland would regularly punish Christian by beating and choking him and withholding food from him for several days at a time, according to a report from Fort Wayne, Indiana ABC affiliate WPTA. Additionally, the boy’s father reportedly told police that Crossland previously told him that she “wished the boy were dead.”
A pediatrician who specializes in child abuse testified in court that Christian’s injuries were indicative of child torture, according to The Commercial Review newspaper. Child torture, she reportedly explained, occurs when a caretaker inflicts at least two separate physical assaults on the child or a single “prolonged assault resulting in distress,” as well as at least two psychological abuse elements, including deprivation or isolation. The doctor reportedly confirmed that Christian was tortured.
Jay County Coroner Michael Brewster also testified and reportedly concurred that the little boy was tortured, and referred to the child’s final months of life as “a prolonged 74-day horror show” the Commercial Review reported. During his final two months, the doctor reportedly said Christian appeared to have been consuming close to zero calories per day.
“What do you say about a case like this? Seventy-four days is what keeps coming back to me. Seventy-four days is how long it takes to starve a 5-year-old boy — every second of every minute of every hour for 74 days, she made a conscious decision to not feed her son” Jay County Prosecutor Wes Schemenaur reportedly said during his closing argument. “This was a horrific way to kill somebody. It took 74 days of methodically sticking to the program of not feeding Christian and beating him.”
Investigators additionally noted that Crossland’s daughters appeared healthy and well-fed.
Prosecutors initially charged Crossland with molesting her 9-year-old daughter, but later dismissed those charges without prejudice, meaning they can be refiled in the future, records show.
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