Authorities said medical findings and witness accounts turned a 2024 child death into a 2026 aggravated manslaughter prosecution.
DELAND, Fla. — A Volusia County homicide investigation built on autopsy findings, hospital records and interviews ended in March with the arrest of a Jacksonville man accused in the death of his 5-week-old daughter.
The filing of an aggravated manslaughter of a child charge against Dajuan Patrick, 27, matters now because it shifts the case from a long investigation into the court system. Authorities say the evidence points to fatal abuse, while the public record still leaves major unanswered questions about what defense arguments may emerge and how much of the underlying case file will become public before trial.
At the center of the case are the injuries identified by doctors and the medical examiner. The sheriff’s office said Dahlia Siebenhaar suffered extensive head trauma, broken ribs, bruising across her body and retinal hemorrhages. Investigators said those injuries were consistent with being shaken and held with extreme force. The medical examiner, Dr. James Fulcher, later ruled the infant’s death a homicide. That ruling gave the case its legal direction, transforming the investigation from a review of a child’s unexplained collapse into a criminal inquiry focused on who inflicted the injuries and how.
Only after that evidentiary work did the case move to arrest. Patrick was taken into custody in Jacksonville on a Volusia County warrant in March 2026, more than a year after his daughter’s death. The sheriff’s office announced the charge the next day, and follow-up local reporting said Patrick was being held without bond after prosecutors sought pretrial detention. That sequence is important because it shows how authorities presented the case: first as an evidence-based homicide determination, then as an arrest, then as an early custody fight over whether he should remain jailed while proceedings continue.
The public timeline begins with a medical emergency. Dahlia was admitted to a hospital on the night of Dec. 2, 2024, unresponsive with severe injuries. She never regained consciousness. On Dec. 12, she was removed from life support. Investigators later said interviews with people who knew the infant’s living situation helped them conclude Patrick had shaken and spanked the baby. Authorities have not publicly released a full narrative of those interviews, and the reports cited in news coverage do not describe in detail what every witness saw, when each statement was taken or whether Patrick gave multiple versions of events.
The sheriff’s office has framed the case in strongly personal terms, centering the infant rather than the mechanics of the prosecution. Chitwood said the arrest would not bring Dahlia back or give her “the childhood she deserved,” but said law enforcement was now speaking for her because “her life mattered.” That statement did two jobs at once: it marked the arrest as a legal step and it explained the agency’s public message after a case involving a baby who died before she could tell anyone what happened. The result is a prosecution built around records and expert findings, then presented to the public through a brief but pointed official statement.
What comes next is narrower but crucial. Patrick still must appear in the proper court, and prosecutors will need to turn an arrest announcement into a courtroom case supported by admissible evidence. Future filings could include a fuller probable cause narrative, discovery disputes, motions over medical testimony and scheduling for arraignment or other hearings. None of that had been laid out in public reporting by early April. For now, the charge stands, the homicide ruling remains the backbone of the case, and the legal record is only beginning to catch up with the investigation that produced it.
As the case stands, authorities have identified the victim, the charge, the medical findings and the custody status, while fuller court records are expected to define the next phase.
Author note: Last updated April 7, 2026.