A 45-year-old Jamaican man has been charged with aggravated child abuse and murder of his four-month-old son, Emanuel Thompson, in Florida, United States.

According to yesterday’s online edition of Florida’s Sun Sentinel newspaper, Ralph Errol Thompson was arrested on Saturday following an autopsy report which showed that his son’s death resulted from a blunt trauma to the head.

Additionally, the autopsy also revealed that the child had numerous bruises over his body, two broken ribs, a broken arm, blood on his brain and a tear in his genitals.

“It would suggest that this father may have abused this little guy from the entire time he’s been on this earth,” Hugh Graf, spokesman for the Broward Sheriff’s Office, was quoted by the newspaper.

The police were called to Thompson’s home at 5:48 am Friday, where they allegedly found the infant unresponsive. The child was pronounced dead an hour later at Plantation General Hospital, the newspaper said.

Emanuel’s mother, Patrice Rose, told investigators that after Thompson lost his job at the Jerk Machine, he drank every day and would slap the baby’s face.

However, Thompson, who according to Graf was routinely alone with the child for hours at a time, told detectives that he didn’t know how the child was hurt. He admitted that he had “stretched” the child by holding him for up to two minutes by his neck and one limb, in order to help him grow, a police report said.

However, Graf said Rose’s three other children showed no signs of abuse and investigators said they had no plans to remove them.

The Sun Sentinel reported that officials with ChildNet, the private agency that does Broward’s child protective services, said they could not disclose whether Thompson was the subject of abuse complaints in the past because the investigation into Emanuel’s death was still open.

But the newspaper reported Broward County Medical Examiner Dr Joshua Perper as saying the child’s body showed a history of abuse. His office’s records show Emanuel was the 20th child to die in Broward of abuse or neglect in the past five years.

“This is a child who was severely beaten for some time,” the Sun Sentinel quoted Perper. “This is a substantial case of child abuse.”

Meanwhile, Thompson pleaded no contest in 2002 to a felony marijuana charge, court records show. He was sentenced to 18 months’ probation.

It is unclear whether he has retained an attorney.

Meanwhile, the Sun Sentinel said family friends who knew Thompson, a Kingston native, were in disbelief when they heard the news about Emanuel’s death. They said he and his girlfriend, Rose, seemed happy.

Shakeba Stanley, daughter of Thompson’s ex-girlfriend, said she would leave her two children with Thompson on occasions.

“He took care of them and never hurt them,” Stanley said. “He couldn’t have done it and if he did, it was a mistake.”

Thompson was known around his neighbourhood for maintaining a meticulous yard and home.

Susie Morris, who lives across the street, told the Sun Sentinel that she would see him outside with his girlfriend all the time. He always talked about his son, she said, and the family seemed happy.

She said she spoke briefly with a distraught Rose on Sunday. Morris never imagined the boy was murdered.

“She just told me the baby died,” Morris told the newspaper.