Mother charged with murdering infant son in Northwest DC

A D.C. woman has been arrested and charged with murdering her 5-month-old son, police announced Friday.

Christen Borden, 35, was arrested Thursday and charged with first-degree murder in the 2023 death of her son, Kenneth Geo Walton.

D.C. police said officers responded to the family’s home in the 4000 block of Massachusetts Avenue NW on Feb. 11, 2023, for a report of an unconscious infant. The child was taken to the hospital, where he died less than a week later.

An autopsy showed the 5-month-old died from complications caused by blunt-force trauma to the head and the manner of death was deemed a homicide, according to police. The autopsy cited a “reported history of conflicting injuries about how the infant was injured,” and found the child suffered abrasions to the forehead, fractures on both sets of ribs and other injuries.

According to court documents, Borden told detectives in an interview that she “blames herself” and that she has “never purposefully done anything” to the child. In a later interview, she described an incident in which she fell while holding the child, according to court records.

In a separate interview, the child’s father told police he found Borden passed out and sitting against the bathroom door days before the child was hospitalized. His son was lying on his back on the floor, court documents say.

He then told police his son had a lump on the back of his head and that when he confronted Borden about what happened, she told him “he was overreacting while making a comment that people drop their children all the time,” court documents say.

However, police and medical officials in court records said the child’s injuries were consistent with “inflicted” and “non-accidental” trauma and cited conflicting statements made by Borden.

Borden is scheduled to appear in court again next week on July 16.

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