Court records said the 7-week-old boy died seven days after an emergency call to an East James Avenue apartment.
BAYTOWN, Texas — A Baytown father has been charged with capital murder after investigators said his 7-week-old son suffered fatal head trauma inside a family apartment in July 2025 and died days later at a Houston hospital.
Christopher Leon Jenkins, 26, was arrested Saturday and booked into the Harris County Jail after charges were filed nearly nine months after the baby was found unresponsive. Court records said Jenkins was alone with the child shortly before the 911 call. A judge found probable cause Monday, and Jenkins remained jailed without bond as the case moved toward a May 11 no-bond hearing.
Baytown police and emergency crews were called July 25, 2025, to an apartment on East James Avenue for a report that a newborn was not breathing. Court records said responders found the boy on a mattress with no clothes on, no pulse and pink fluid coming from his mouth. The baby was first taken to Houston Methodist, where he began breathing again, then transferred to Texas Children’s Hospital. He died Aug. 1. The child’s mother told investigators she had handed the baby to Jenkins while she went to another unit in the same complex to see her mother. About 20 minutes later, records said, Jenkins came over and said something was wrong with the child.
Investigators said Jenkins gave several accounts of what happened before the baby stopped breathing. He first said he had put the infant to sleep, stepped outside to smoke a cigarette and returned to find him unresponsive. Records later described other statements in which Jenkins said he accidentally dropped the baby while feeding him or while taking him out of a bath. A witness told investigators the baby had been crying before the emergency call and that Jenkins was heard yelling at the child to “shut up.” The witness said the crying then stopped. During an interview, investigators said, Jenkins told detectives, “There was too much crying in my mind,” and said something “just clicked.” Authorities said Jenkins used a doll during a police walkthrough to show how he handled the child.
Court records said Jenkins threw the doll onto a bed and described the baby bouncing from the mattress to the floor. Investigators said Jenkins also admitted he picked up the child after the fall and shook him. The Harris County medical examiner later found the infant died from blunt force trauma to the head with subdural hemorrhage, and officials ruled the death a homicide. Records described injuries that prosecutors said were caused by violent acceleration and deceleration forces. Investigators also accused Jenkins of striking the child with his hand or a blunt object. Medical findings were not consistent with Jenkins’ earlier statements that the baby had stopped breathing on his own, according to records summarized in court filings.
The case began as a medical emergency in an apartment complex about 30 miles east of Houston, but the investigation changed as doctors reported brain bleeding, cardiac arrest and injuries they said were consistent with abuse. The baby briefly regained breathing after first aid and hospital care, but he could not be saved. Reports reviewed in the case did not show charges against the child’s mother, who was nearby in the same complex when the emergency unfolded. Authorities have not released the child’s name in available reports. They also have not released every detail from the autopsy, and available court summaries did not list a public statement from Jenkins’ attorney.
The capital murder charge is tied to the victim’s age. Texas law allows a capital murder charge when a person is accused of murdering a child younger than 10. Charges were filed Friday, and Jenkins was arrested the next day. At a Monday hearing in the 338th District Court, a judge found probable cause for the case to move forward and set a no-bond hearing for May 11. No trial date had been announced in available records, and reports did not show that Jenkins had entered a plea. Prosecutors will decide how to proceed as the case moves through Harris County’s criminal court system.
The court records drew attention across the Houston area because of the details investigators said Jenkins gave in the months after the baby’s death. In one account described by investigators, Jenkins said he became angry because the infant would not stop crying. In another, he showed detectives with a doll how the baby allegedly bounced off the bed. Authorities said the statements came after Jenkins had first offered explanations that described the child’s condition as sudden or accidental. The apartment, the mattress, the emergency call and the hospital transfers became central parts of the case as investigators compared Jenkins’ statements with medical findings.
Jenkins remained in Harris County custody without bond as of the latest reports. The next scheduled court milestone is the May 11 no-bond hearing, while prosecutors continue the capital murder case tied to the infant’s Aug. 1 death.
Author note: Last updated April 29, 2026.