Kyle Deering Kregling: Michigan man sentenced to several years in prison for killing his 8-month-old son
BRONSON, MICHIGAN: A Michigan man is set to spend more than a decade in prison for killing his eight-month-old son.
Kyle Deering Kregling, 32, reportedly slammed his child onto the ground because he wouldn't stop crying.
On Monday, September 11, 37th Circuit Court Judge John A Hallacy ordered Kregling to serve a sentence between 17 and 50 years in a state correctional facility for the brutal 2020 killing of young Chris Kregling.
The defendant pleaded no contest to one count of second-degree murder in his son’s death in June.
Prosecutors dismissed charges of first-degree child abuse and open murder in exchange for his plea where a jury would have the choice to find Kregling guilty of first or second-degree murder.
Judge Hallacy also credited Kregling with 1,043 days already served.
How did Chris Kregling die?
According to a press release issued by the Battle Creek Police Department on November 5, 2020, officers and emergency responders attended an emergency call about an unresponsive infant at Kregling’s home located in the 100 block of West Territorial Road.
The authorities located the victim upon arriving at the scene and transported him to the Bronson Methodist Hospital via LifeCare Ambulance in Kalamazoo for treatment.
The tot was admitted to the facility in critical condition but tragically he breathed his last on November 4, 2020, two days after his arrival due to severe head injury.
What did Kyle Deering Kregling tell the authorities?
During an interview with the investigators, Kregling initially claimed that his son had fallen off his bed and injured himself before he dialed 911.
However, police noted in the release that the officers who responded to the home “believed the child’s injuries may not have been consistent with an accidental fall.”
According to NBC affiliate WOOD-TV, police and medics who responded to the initial 911 call at Kregling’s home reported that the child had a fresh bruise on his forehead.
The authorities reportedly interrogated Kregling and pressed him as to the circumstances of Chris Kregling’s death.
The father allegedly admitted in a subsequent interview that on the day his son suffered the fatal injuries, he had dropped the boy in the bedroom.
He said that Chris fell and struck the bed frame before hitting the floor.
Kregling then claimed that his son would not stop crying after the fall which caused him to grow increasingly “frustrated.”
The outlet reported that the father then began to shake his infant son, but the boy kept crying, so he finally “slammed Chris to the ground".
The infant stopped crying after being slammed but also became unresponsive.
Kregling said he tried pinching and biting the child’s rear to provoke a response, but he failed to respond.
He then called Chris' mother who is now his ex-girlfriend, before dialing 911.
“Just about every one of these child abuse death cases is preventable,” Calhoun County Prosecutor David Gilbert told MLive after the sentencing hearing.
“It can be very tough being a parent, but this is never acceptable,” he stated.