A man has been found guilty of the bashing murder of a two-year-old boy after moving in with the child’s mother.
He moved in with Jaidyn’s mother, Stacie Saggers, in August 2019, 26 days before the child was found dead from head injuries in his bedroom at the Langwarrin home, prosecutors told the jury.
Saggers put Jaidyn, affectionately known as Snuffles, to sleep on September 2 and went to a cleaning job, leaving Pallant to babysit the toddler and his older brother.
When she returned home, the couple went for a nap in their room.
Pallant told police he went to check on Jaidyn at about 4pm and found him lying on his bedroom floor with a plastic table on top of him.
The toddler was described as being “cold to touch, unconscious and not breathing” and had been dead for some time, prosecutor Mark Gibson said in his closing address.
He said Pallant killed Jaidyn with a metal table after a “short but profound period of loss of control, frustration and anger”.
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Jurors retired to deliberate on Thursday and returned to the court on Tuesday.
“Guilty,” the jury’s foreperson said, after being asked for their verdict.
Justice Jane Dixon discharged the jury after thanking them for their service to the community.
She remanded Pallant in custody until a pre-sentence hearing in October.
“I ask that welfare checks be made on him,” Justice Dixon said.
It was Pallant’s second murder trial over the boy’s death after a jury was unable to reach a verdict in August last year.
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