{"id":360488,"date":"2026-08-02T04:37:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-02T04:37:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/360488\/"},"modified":"2026-08-02T04:37:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-02T04:37:11","slug":"florida-dad-allegedly-murdered-infant-with-leaf-blower","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/360488\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida dad allegedly murdered infant with leaf blower"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A Florida dad who allegedly admitted he thought it\u2019d be fun to use a leaf blower on his infant son has been charged with murder.<\/p>\n<p>James Westervelt, 38, was charged with first-degree murder on Thursday with first-degree murder \u2014 two years after his <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/03\/15\/us-news\/mom-filmed-tiktok-dance-in-hospital-room-while-baby-was-dying-from-abusive-head-trauma\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">six-month-old died <\/a>in the hospital, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.waff.com\/2026\/08\/01\/man-who-allegedly-admitted-using-leaf-blower-infant-indicted-murder-charge\/?utm_source=taboola&amp;utm_medium=personalized-push\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">WAFF48 reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Police said the child was just two months old when Westervelt allegedly <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/10\/08\/us-news\/robert-roberson-approaches-execution-again-in-texas-shaken-baby-syndrome-case\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">blew air recklessly<\/a> at him with the blower for a laugh.<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:0.79980469;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"40154656\" width=\"472\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/jail-marionso-com-details-aspx-136197963.jpg\" alt=\"A mug shot of James Westervelt.\" class=\"wp-image-40154656\"  \/>James Westervelt was charged with first-degree murder on Thursday.  Marion County Sheriff&#8217;s Office<\/p>\n<p>The baby was placed on life support, but died in August 2024. His cause of death was blunt force trauma <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/09\/24\/us-news\/nyc-dad-who-shook-3-month-old-daughter-to-death-learns-fate-at-sentencing\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">caused by bouncing<\/a>, according to the outlet. <\/p>\n<p>Westervelt, who was previously facing child abuse charges stemming from the fatal incident, remains in custody in Marion County and is due back in court in September. <\/p>\n<p>The Bellevue man was previously charged with possession of methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia in May, according to court records. His next scheduled court date on these charges is on Aug. 5 for a pretrial conference.<\/p>\n<p>Westervelt\u2019s attorney and the Marion County Sheriff\u2019s Office did not immediately return requests for comment. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Florida dad who allegedly admitted he thought it\u2019d be fun to use a leaf blower on his&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":360489,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2353,265,28,30,29,4538,4278],"class_list":["post-360488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-child","tag-crime","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-murders","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360488","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=360488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/360489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}