Authorities Release Name of Ramona Boy Who Died in His Sleep, Plus His Father's Identity

Authorities released the name Wednesday of a severely disabled 6-year-old boy who died in his Ramona home of complications from parental abuse he suffered as an infant. That assault is now classified as a homicide.

Emergency crews responding to a medical distress call pronounced Samuel
Dahlke dead at his adoptive family's home shortly before 12:30 a.m. Tuesday, according to sheriff's officials and the county Medical Examiner's
Office.

Chris Dahlke told Fox 5 San Diego she found her son not breathing when she went to give him medication around midnight.

An autopsy determined that the youngster had succumbed to effects of a head injury suffered when he was about 6 weeks old. His death was ruled a homicide, according to police.

Samuel's biological father, Billy Joe Springfield II, was convicted in 2006 of abusing the boy in 2005 at an apartment in the Golden Hill district of San Diego. Springfield, who was 23, at the time was sentenced to four years probation, according to a spokeswoman for the District Attorney's Office.

The child's name was changed when he was adopted by the Dahlke family.

San Diego Police Department will work with prosecutors to determine whether to file additional charges against Springfield in light of the child's death, SDPD homicide Lt. Kevin Rooney said.

The injuries that Samuel suffered from being violently shaken as a baby left him with severe, permanent disabilities, including paralysis and blindness, his adoptive mother told Fox 5.

"He had every disability,'' Dahlke said. "He had no ability to move his body at all. He couldn't walk. He couldn't crawl. He couldn't roll. He had no ability to use his body at all.''

Springfield moved out of California in 2007, according to Fox 5. Rooney declined to disclose where the potential homicide suspect now lives.

—City News Service report.