CLAY COUNTY, Fla. \u2013 An Orange Park man is facing a first-degree felony charge after a child in his care died following what investigators say was abusive head trauma.<\/p>\n
Anthony Thompson, 23, of Orange Park, was charged Oct. 3 with aggravated manslaughter of a child, a first-degree felony, according to an arrest warrant affidavit filed in Clay County Circuit Court.<\/p>\n
911 call leads to investigation<\/p>\n
On July 15, 2026, the Clay County Sheriff\u2019s Office Communications Unit received a 911 call at approximately 10 a.m. reporting a child who was choking.<\/p>\n
When deputies arrived, Thompson \u2014 identified as the sole adult caregiver at the time \u2014 escorted them to the unresponsive child. Clay County Fire Rescue transported the child to HCA Florida Orange Park Hospital, where the child was then airlifted to Wolfson Children\u2019s Hospital in Jacksonville.<\/p>\n
At the time of admission, hospital staff initially believed the incident may have been related to a heart condition, though no conclusive testing had been completed at that point, according to the affidavit.<\/p>\n
Investigation points to abusive head trauma<\/p>\n
As the investigation progressed, medical findings shifted the direction of the case.<\/p>\n
According to the affidavit, the child\u2019s fatal injury was determined to be abusive head trauma, likely caused by severe acceleration\/deceleration \u2014 commonly referred to as shaking. Investigators said the severity of the injury demonstrated \u201ca grossly careless disregard for the safety\u201d of the child.<\/p>\n
Thompson also provided a written statement to investigators on July 15, the same day as the incident, according to the affidavit.<\/p>\n
Thompson was booked into the Clay County jail without bond. <\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CLAY COUNTY, Fla. \u2013 An Orange Park man is facing a first-degree felony charge after a child in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":421798,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[692,3487,116,118,117,3489],"class_list":["post-421797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-arrest","tag-clay-county","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-orange-park"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421797","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=421797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421797\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/421798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}