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Former Utah day care owner found guilty of child abuse homicide

Posted at 11:13 AM, May 16, 2017
and last updated 2017-05-16 22:36:42-04

OGDEN, Utah — A former Roy day care owner who was charged with child abuse homicide in connection with a 2014 incident was found guilty Tuesday.

"It's been a long road we're just grateful that this can now be about Lincoln...the memory of my son should be about Lincoln him as a person and not this trial," Chris Penland, Lincoln's dad, said.

Tisha Lynn Morley, 36, was the proprietor of Tots & Tykes Daycare, a facility she operated out of her Roy home.

Morley was arrested in April 2014 after the death of an eight-month-old boy who, according to Roy police, was "cold and unresponsive" when his father picked him up from the daycare facility on February 19, 2014.

Roy police said the boy was taken to a local hospital, where a physician found the boy had a skull fracture and brain trauma caused by shaking and impact-inflicted trauma.

The boy was taken by helicopter to Primary Children's Medical Center in Salt Lake City, where he died nine days later.

The Office of the State Medical Examiner ruled the manner of death as a homicide, with the cause of injury being blunt force injury of the head, according to Roy police.

"I'm glad the jury was able to see through a defense that had no substance to it and vindicate the Penlands after years of waiting for this day. This case has been pending 1,182 days," Branden Miles, Chief Criminal Deputy Weber County Attorney, said.

Watch FOX 13 News and fox13now.com for updates on Morley's sentencing.