According to Pennsylvania law enforcement, a woman is in prison for killing her boyfriend’s 2-year-old son after previously searching online for how to get rid of bruises.
Brianna Rufina Bloyer, 30, faces one count of homicide, according to the Fayette County District Attorney’s Office.
The accused is accused of not only severely hurting the toddler but also knowingly allowing him to die after the fact.
A criminal complaint that The Observer-Reporter, CBS News, and Pittsburgh-based NBC affiliate WPXI got says that Bentlee Myers was killed on August 16.
Someone else, an adult, showed up at Bloyer’s house on Old Lake Lynn Road in Springhill Township early that afternoon. Springhill Township is a small town just across the border from West Virginia.
The other adult there found the child not responding.
Law enforcement say that person learned Bloyer knew where the boy was but had not called 911, which was almost as scary.
The complaint does not name the person who did call 911.
The complaint says that the other adult called 911 and said that the child’s feet were propped up, his face was blue, and he did not look like he was breathing.
The boy was rushed to a nearby hospital, but it was too little, too late. The doctors said he was brain dead, and Bentlee died on August 19 from his injuries.
The boy was covered in bruises, and the doctors also found that he had a lot of injuries inside his body. “Heart arrest by head trauma” was the official cause of his death.
Bloyer is said to have told police that the child had been staying with her for about two weeks on the day of the death. So the complaint goes, the defendant allegedly said that when she woke Bentlee up that morning, he stumbled and then fell down.
The house was searched, and police found Bloyer’s phone. Police say they found the search term “how to get someone to come to you when you pass out” on the device from August 16.
Between August 8 and 9, more searches that could lead to charges were made on Google. These included “why am I so much more angry while pregnant” and “what better to make bruises fade overnight,” according to police.
The boyfriend of the boy’s father is said to have googled “homemade bruise cream” and “carpet imprint in face how long does it take to go away” to find out how long it takes for carpet marks on the face to fade.
According to the complaint, police confirmed that the woman’s phone did not call 911 on the day she was killed.
Police say the boy’s father did not know the bruises were there when he was asked to explain them. The father did, however, allegedly tell police that he saw that his girlfriend was upset and stressed out about the child.
Police say that Bloyer was supposed to show up for a follow-up interview on September 25, but she never did. Police say that the defendant’s car was seen in Indiana and then Arizona between the time she missed the meeting and her recent arrest.
Bloyer is being held in the Fayette County Jail without bond right now.
The defendant is set to go to court on Nov. 20 for a preliminary hearing.