{"id":191547,"date":"2026-03-14T15:25:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T15:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/191547\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T15:25:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T15:25:09","slug":"florida-father-accused-of-shaking-five-week-old-daughter-to-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/191547\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida father accused of shaking five-week-old daughter to death"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A Florida man was arrested this week in the death of his 5-week-old daughter, who suffered a slew of horrifying critical injuries after he allegedly \u201cshook and spanked\u201d her, police said.<\/p>\n<p>Dajuan Patrick, of Jacksonville, was arrested and charged with aggravated manslaughter of a child on Wednesday \u2013 more than a year after his infant, Dahlia Siebenhaar, died, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.volusiasheriff.gov\/news\/volusia-county-sheriff\/man-charged-in-2024-death-of-5-week-old-child.stml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">the Volusia Sheriff\u2019s Office<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Dahlia was rushed to the hospital the night of Dec. 2, 2024 \u2013 brutally battered and unresponsive, authorities said.<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"38778288\" width=\"590\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/crop-38778276_ff3615.jpg\" alt=\"A mugshot of a man with blue hair.\" class=\"wp-image-38778288\"  \/>Dajuan Patrick, 27, was arrested for allegedly shaking and spanking his five-week-old daughter to death in 2024.  Volusia Sheriff&#8217;s Office<\/p>\n<p>An autopsy and medical records revealed the infant had serious head trauma, leaving her brain dead; broken ribs; bruises all over her body; and bleeding behind her eyes from \u201cbeing shaken and held with extreme force,\u201d investigators said.<\/p>\n<p>She clung to life for 10 days until she was taken off life support. The medical examiner ruled her death a homicide.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Patrick, 27, was allegedly taking care of Dahlia in their home the night she was fatally injured, while her mother was resting,<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wesh.com\/article\/florida-man-arrested-death-5-week-old-daughter-daytona-beach\/70715007\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\"> WESH 2 reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The dad initially claimed he had no idea why his daughter was hurt before allegedly changing his story to claim he had tripped over a bag and landed on the baby, authorities said.<\/p>\n<p>It is unclear why it took so long to arrest and charge the blue-haired suspect \u2013 who appeared emotionless while pursing his lips for his mugshot.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.50146628;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"38778278\" width=\"886\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/2024-arrested-according-volusia-county-123548955.jpg\" alt=\"A street in Jacksonville where he was arrested.\" class=\"wp-image-38778278\"  \/>Dahlia was attacked inside of her home. The street where she lived is seen above.  WESH<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe arrest in this case won\u2019t bring Dahlia back or give her the childhood she deserved, but today we\u2019re speaking up for her, because her life mattered,\u201d Sheriff Mike Chitwood said in a statement.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Patrick was being held without bond in Jacksonville and was awaiting extradition to Volusia County.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The sheriff\u2019s office did not immediately return a request for comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Florida man was arrested this week in the death of his 5-week-old daughter, who suffered a slew&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":191548,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[19709,265,28,30,29,1109,132,4278],"class_list":["post-191547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-baby","tag-crime","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-homicide","tag-police","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191547","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=191547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191547\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}