In a Durham courtroom, a 3-year-old boy died after injuries that prosecutors say were inflicted by his mother, Christina Robinson. The case closely centers on a brutal sequence of events that authorities describe as intentional harm carried out with a bamboo cane and followed by immersion in hot water before additional blows to the head.
Christina Robinson, 30, is accused of shocking acts of abuse toward her son, Dwelaniyah, with authorities describing the punishment as a weaponized form of child discipline. The Crown contends that the injuries were not accidental, but the result of deliberate violence, and that the mother used a religious justification to rationalize her actions during the trial before the jury.
Robinson has denied the charges, including murder and child cruelty, stating that the alleged acts did not occur at her home on Bracken Court in Durham in November 2022. The defense maintains that she did not kill her child and disputes the severity and intent attributed to the injuries.
“The Bible allows me to discipline my child”
During the proceedings, investigators recovered a bamboo cane bearing bloodstains and tissue, described by prosecutors as evidence of the violent episode. The accused admits to striking the child with a weapon but argues that biblical instruction authorizes such discipline, a claim the court has been asked to scrutinize in light of the grave consequences involved.
The mother reportedly summoned emergency services at 4:09 p.m., telling responders that her child’s eyes appeared unusual and that he was not breathing. She suggested the boy may have collapsed while eating a cheese sandwich, a statement the prosecution says was designed to cast doubt on the sequence of events that led to the child’s deteriorating condition.
Paramedics were told by Robinson that the leg bandages on the child were the result of burns the child supposedly caused to himself in the shower weeks earlier, adding that the injuries were not serious enough to require hospital treatment. The narrative presented by the defense contrasts with the scene that emergency personnel encountered at the family home and the injuries later documented in the autopsy.
Autopsy findings and the timeline
Dwelaniyah was rushed to a hospital where his heart stopped beating two hours after arrival and he was pronounced dead at 5:22 p.m. The postmortem report identified multiple injuries that were deemed non-accidental and consistent with deliberate harm over a period of time. The prosecution framed the case as one where a caregiver caused significant trauma, pointing to the mother as the person responsible for the sustained injuries that led to the child’s death.
The Crown argued that the child endured “unimaginable pain” and suggested that Robinson did not seek medical care immediately because she anticipated questions about the child’s injuries. The autopsy revealed burns covering a portion of the body, supporting the claim that the child was subjected to immersion in hot water and other forms of physical abuse before the fatal collapse.
The prosecutor asserted that the alleged head injury arose from a forceful shake or impact that could be associated with a severe form of head trauma. The evidence, including findings related to the brain and eyes, was presented as indicative of deliberate harm rather than an accident, reinforcing the assertion that the mother was responsible for the child’s death.
The case has raised questions about the intersection of parental beliefs and child safety, highlighting the challenges prosecutors face when examining claims of religiously motivated discipline in incidents of extreme violence. The jurors have been asked to weigh the evidence and determine whether the actions described meet the threshold for murder and cruelty, taking into account the context in which the alleged acts occurred.