A 24-year-old Idaho man, Dyllan Dwight Towles, has been sentenced to 50 years in prison after confessing to the brutal murder of his newborn daughter in 2021. Towles will be eligible for parole after serving a minimum of 25 years, as per the ruling of Kootenai County District Judge Barbara Duggan.
Court documents reveal that Towles pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of second-degree murder in connection with his daughter’s death last year. The Kootenai County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office reported that Towles dialed 911 on September 18, 2021, informing the dispatcher that his 2-month-old baby was not breathing.
Upon arrival, emergency responders found the infant unresponsive and lying face up on the floor. They noticed visible injuries on the child, including a large circular bruise on her cheek, a bruise on her right leg, and bite marks on her left forearm, left ankle, and below her knee. Despite their best efforts, the child was pronounced dead at the hospital.
Towles, when questioned about the events leading up to his 911 call, stated that everything seemed normal until the day of the incident. He reported that his daughter began to act unusually, not responding to his attempts to get her attention. He admitted to biting, shaking, and manipulating the child’s legs in an attempt to elicit a response after she became unresponsive.
An autopsy conducted by the Spokane County Medical Examiner’s Office revealed blunt force injuries on the child’s head, neck, torso, and extremities. The child had fractures on her rib, arm, shoulder, and both femurs, along with a spinal cord injury, and bleeding and swelling of the brain. The varying stages of healing of these injuries indicated a history of sustained abuse.
Following the autopsy, prosecutors sought the expertise of pediatric professionals and forensic pathologists from the Washington State University of Medicine and the University of Utah School of Medicine. These experts concluded that the infant’s death was undoubtedly a result of abusive head trauma.
Towles was indicted on the charge of first-degree murder by a grand jury and was arrested on July 6, 2023. Initially, Towles stuck to his original story during the police interview, but eventually confessed to shaking his infant child out of frustration because she would not eat and would not stop crying.
It was also revealed that Towles had a previous conviction in 2019 for felony injury to a child, initially charged with statutory rape. At the time of the murder, Towles was still on probation for this charge.