Bail Set at $500K for Mom's Boyfriend In 2-Year-Old's Murder

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ODENTON, MD — The boyfriend of a two-year-old boy’s mother charged with the child’s murder is being held on half-a-million-dollars bond after prosecutors argued he is the only viable suspect in the homicide.

Dason Darius Hogan, 22, of no fixed address was charged Friday with multiple counts of child abuse and murder in the death of Michael Lee-Ashley Stem.

He was in court Monday, where bond was set at $500,000. If he is released on bail, Hogan is ordered not to have contact with minors.

“My duty is to protect the children in this county and we work every day to make sure something like this doesn’t occur,” Anne Arundel County State’s Attorney Wes Adams said Monday at a press conference.

The child’s mother, three other children and Hogan had been staying at the Royal Inn, 1630 Annapolis Road, Odenton. Anne Arundel County Police and Fire Department personnel were called to the motel March 7 on a report of a possible cardiac incident involving the two-year-old boy.

Firefighters took Michael to Baltimore Washington Medical Center, where he was later pronounced dead.

The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner performed an autopsy on the child Tuesday, and ruled the cause of Michael’s death as blunt force trauma with the manner being homicide. The boy could not have survived the injury, according to the medical examiner.

The injury was incapacitating, and would have been seen by the victim’s mother and others, Adams said.

Detectives say Hogan gave contradictory statements about what happened that morning when he was watching Michael while the toddler’s mother was at work. Video surveillance reportedly showed Hogan walk three children to the bus stop and return shortly thereafter with Michael in good health. No one else was seen entering or exiting the hotel room until Michael’s mother was called about his injuries.

Hogan is charged with first-degree murder, second-degree murder, child abuse first-degree death, first-degree assault and second-degree assault in the toddler’s death.

This is the first Anne Arundel County homicide of 2016.

Anne Arundel County Police ask anyone with information to call 410-222-4731. If people with information wish to remain anonymous they can contact the Anne Arundel County Police Tip Line at 410-222-4700.

»Photo of Dason Hogan, courtesy of Anne Arundel County Police