{"id":359145,"date":"2026-07-31T18:40:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T18:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/359145\/"},"modified":"2026-07-31T18:40:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T18:40:08","slug":"stepdad-gets-up-to-20-years-for-jacksonville-toddlers-murder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/359145\/","title":{"rendered":"Stepdad gets up to 20 years for Jacksonville toddler\u2019s murder"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">The above video is our WITN+ livestream and may not reflect the content in this story.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">JACKSONVILLE, N.C. (WITN) &#8211; The stepdad of a toddler is facing up to 20 years after the child was found dead in Jacksonville four years ago.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Desreon Harris pled guilty yesterday to the June 2022 second-degree murder of a toddler.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">It was through an Alford plea, in which he did not admit guilt but accepted his sentencing due to sufficient evidence.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Prosecutors say Harris was able to get an intentional child abuse charge dismissed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">He was sentenced to between 16 years and 20 years, 3 months behind bars and received credit for four years in jail.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">On June 22, 2022, Jacksonville police were called to an apartment on Village Drive for an unresponsive two-year-old child.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Once there, officers said they tried life-saving measures and brought the child, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.witn.com\/2022\/07\/07\/stepfather-toddler-charged-with-murder-jacksonville\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.witn.com\/2022\/07\/07\/stepfather-toddler-charged-with-murder-jacksonville\/\">Noah Austin<\/a>, to several hospitals.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Officials say that Austin was pronounced dead three days later. <\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 WITN. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The above video is our WITN+ livestream and may not reflect the content in this story. JACKSONVILLE, N.C.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":359146,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[55143,146409,146408,116,118,117,15668,1933,4481,1854,18914,20388,22710,146410,4480],"class_list":["post-359145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-alford","tag-alford-plea","tag-desreon-harris","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-jacksonville-police-department","tag-murder","tag-nc","tag-north-carolina","tag-plea","tag-stepfather","tag-toddler","tag-village-drive","tag-witn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359145","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=359145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/359146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}