{"id":179510,"date":"2026-03-05T17:13:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T17:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/179510\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T17:13:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T17:13:08","slug":"ruling-in-death-of-4-year-old-released-by-hillsborough-sheriff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/179510\/","title":{"rendered":"Ruling In Death Of 4-Year-Old Released By Hillsborough Sheriff"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>WIMAUMA, FL \u2014 A medical examiner in Hillsborough County has ruled the death of a 4-year-old child a homicide, authorities said Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>The Hillsborough County Sheriff&#8217;s Office did not release a manner of death or identify the child, who was found dead around 3:30 p.m. on Feb. 20, in the 2500 block of Tee Time Road. <\/p>\n<p>The child suffered upper body trauma, which led to their death, authorities said. <\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tampabay.com\/news\/crime\/2026\/03\/04\/wimauma-child-death-homicide-hillsborough\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Tampa Bay Times<\/a> reported that the Florida Department of Children and Families database of state child deaths says that on Feb. 20 in Hillsborough County, a \u201c4-year-old child was pronounced deceased after he was found unresponsive while playing outside unattended with a sibling.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Authorities have not said if that state report is about the child who died in Wimauma.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is a heartbreaking case, and our detectives are working tirelessly to determine the events that led to this tragedy,&#8221; Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister said in a news release. \u201cWe are committed to uncovering the truth and ensuring anyone responsible is held fully accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The investigation remains active.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WIMAUMA, FL \u2014 A medical examiner in Hillsborough County has ruled the death of a 4-year-old child a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":179511,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-179510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179510\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}