A FORMER beauty queen sobbed as she was jailed for battering her boyfriend’s 18-month-old son to death in a jealous rage.
Trinity Madison Poague, 20, wept uncontrollably as she was hit with a life sentence after jurors convicted her of felony murder.
Poague was cleared of malice murder but stared blankly as Judge W. James Sizemore, Jr. delivered her fate.
Judge Sizemore said he didn’t “do a lot of speaking” when passing sentence, adding that he had “considered the tragedy,” before chillingly stating that she would receive “a sentence of life in prison.”
Jurors found she murdered little Romeo Jaxton Dru Angeles inside her boyfriend Julian Williams’ dorm room at Georgia Southwestern State University in January 2024.
Prosecutors said she beat the baby so viciously that his brain was left “useless,” according to the indictment.
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Prosecutor Lewis Lamb told jurors that Poague wanted a child with Williams “but not that child,” describing jealousy as her motive.
Poague texted Williams claiming his son was not breathing while he was out collecting a pizza, prompting him to race back to the dorm.
Williams found his toddler unresponsive and rushed him to the ER with vomit covering his sweatshirt.
Romeo never regained stability despite doctors’ attempts to prepare him for an emergency flight to a children’s hospital in Atlanta.
Poague was arrested a week later after doctors revealed injuries caused by “blunt-force trauma to the head and torso.”
The medical examiner found Romeo had not eaten at all, which contradicted Poague’s claim that he had been eating chips moments earlier.
Prosecutors said Poague searched “How do you get a brain bleed?” and “How can a depressed skull fracture go unnoticed?” on her phone while at the hospital.
ER doctor Michael Busman said swelling on Romeo’s head and fluid from his nose pointed to “a direct blow.”
Dr Busman said a fall from a low chair or bed could not explain the catastrophic injuries he treated.
He also said that when he asked Poague what happened, she admitted she had “shaken” the child because he was “not acting correctly.”
Williams testified that Romeo threw up once when he returned home after being watched by Poague, and again as he drove him to hospital.
Police bodycam footage showed Williams’ sweatshirt covered in vomit, and he said he kept it because detectives never asked for it and he wanted it as a memory of his son.
The Sumter County courtroom was packed on Friday as closing arguments began under strict warnings from the judge about outbursts.
Judge Sizemore ordered the doors locked during arguments and allowed jurors a break every hour.
Supporters of Julian “Jay” Williams filled one side of the courtroom as Poague’s family and friends cried behind her.
A prosecutor told jurors: “She killed that little boy, cracked his skull,” and acted “out of anger out of malice.”
The insisting she was the only person who could have inflicted the injuries in the window of time available.
Defence lawyer Tim Gamble told jurors they must consider every possibility, saying they could not discount that Williams could have been responsible.
He said they also could not discount the possibility of an accident while the child was showering.
He added that they could not discount a fall from the 40-inch bed and argued those scenarios all amounted to reasonable doubt.
Gamble told jurors that they could not return a guilty verdict if any reasonable doubt existed.
Students at GSW recalled hearing prolonged crying from the dorm before it suddenly stopped, according to local CBS affiliate WRDW.
Student Lily Waterman said: “That kid was crying for a long time until everyone said that suddenly it just stopped.”
“No one knew what happened,” she added
Poague had previously been crowned Miss Donalsonville, but Early County News reported she was stripped of her title after her arrest.