17-year-old dad accused of killing infant son with breathing issues, FL cops say
A 17-year-old dad said his infant son gasped and stopped breathing after he put him down for a nap, but medical personnel found the baby had a brain bleed and other injuries that led to his death, Florida authorities said.
A grand jury has indicted Hector Jose Rios Guzman IV, now 18, on a charge of first-degree murder, the State Attorney’s Office for the Fifth Judicial Circuit announced July 2.
The indictment comes more than nine months after Ezrial Lazaro Rios McCallister died.
Guzman told investigators with the Citrus County Sheriff’s Office that the 11-week-old’s mom was at work and he was at home with his son on Sept. 23 when he gave his baby a bottle and put him in his electric bassinet after he fell asleep, according to an incident report shared with McClatchy News.
The dad said he started playing a video game in the same room only a few feet away, until he heard the baby gasp for air, deputies said.
Guzman and the baby’s mom said their child had ongoing breathing issues that were being treated by a doctor and stemmed from complications during birth that led to a stay in the neonatal intensive unit.
Guzman said his baby would sometimes gasp for air, so he would pick him up and hold him upright to help him breathe, according to deputies.
He told deputies this time when he picked up his baby, the child was limp and not breathing, so he started CPR.
He called his mother-in-law as she was pulling up to the family’s home, and she ran inside and started helping him with CPR, investigators said.
She told deputies Guzman is a “good father and is very attentive to Ezrial,” according to the report.
Fire rescue brought the baby to a hospital, where medical personnel found he had a brain bleed, a broken right collar bone, bruises on his lower back and “redness on the back of his head,” deputies said.
The baby was intubated and “coded” overnight before he died, according to investigators.
The medical examiner concluded the manner of death was a homicide, but the cause of death was not included in the report shared with McClatchy News.
The Pasco Sheriff’s Office arrested Guzman on June 27, records show.
Citrus County is on Florida’s Gulf Coast, about a 75-mile drive north from Tampa.
This story was originally published July 3, 2025 at 12:02 PM with the headline "17-year-old dad accused of killing infant son with breathing issues, FL cops say."