STAR CITY, Ark. (AP) – Prosecutors will seek the death penalty for an Arkansas couple if they’re found guilty of capital murder in the death of their 11-year-old child.
Kyle Hunter, the prosecuting attorney for Jefferson and Lincoln counties, told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on Wednesday that the penalty is justified “based on the nature of this crime.”
Thirty-eight-year-old David Black and 30-year-old Mary Black were charged in June in the death of 11-year-old Joseph Carsello in Star City, about 60 miles (97 kilometers) southeast of Little Rock.
Prosecutors have said the boy died of multiple blunt force trauma, including injuries to his head, and that the Blacks acknowledged hitting the boy in the face “with their hands for back-talking.”
They say the couple also reported the boy had fallen and hit his head on a toolbox.
The couple in June denied killing the boy.
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