Mom Faces Manslaughter Charge After Boy, 8, Found 'Ice Cold'

HENNEPIN COUNTY, MN — A Brooklyn Park woman was charged with second-degree manslaughter for the death of her eight-year-old son, Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman announced Friday.

Tasha Tennin, 36, was charged with two counts of second-degree manslaughter, one for endangerment of a child and the other for culpable negligence. She will make her first court appearance Friday, according to a news release.

According to the complaint, Tennin contacted police and paramedics on Feb. 1, 2018, at approximately 7:30 a.m. to report her son was unresponsive.

Police found her son lying on the living room floor with no pulse and extremely cold to the touch.

Tennin told the police she attempted to wake her son for school that morning, but he was unresponsive and she carried him from his bedroom to the living room, the complaint states.

Police and paramedics at the scene and a medical examiner’s office investigator each described the boy’s body as being “ice cold,” and “very cold, as if he had been outside.” Despite the efforts of police and paramedics, the boy was pronounced dead at 8:14 a.m., according to the complaint.

Tennin told Brooklyn Park Detectives that her son came home from school sick, lethargic and without an appetite the day before. However, staff members at the boy’s school told investigators that he had been playing and jumping on a trampoline, the complaint states.

Police reported that the boy appeared to have urinated in his pajamas, and a police sergeant noticed a puddle of frozen liquid in the attached garage. When police came back to Tennin’s home with a search warrant a week after the death, the liquid was gone, the complaint says.

The medical examiner’s autopsy found no anatomical cause for the boy’s death, according to the complaint, and on the boy’s back were multiple lesions and scars, which a doctor stated were indicative of physical abuse.

Months after the boy’s death, his siblings told foster parents more about what happened. According to authorities, one of the children said the boy got into trouble on Jan. 31, 2018, and was told by Tennin to sit outside in the garage.

Tennin locked the garage and the boy was left outside for the night, authorities said. The complaint states the boy was found unable to breathe the next morning.