Court records describe conversations about bruises and discipline before the Newport News child suffered fatal blunt-force injuries.
NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — Text messages exchanged more than a week before a 5-year-old boy died are helping shape the case against his mother and her boyfriend, who are both accused of second-degree murder after investigators said the child suffered fatal internal injuries from blunt-force trauma.
The electronic evidence has become one of the clearest indications in publicly reported court records that investigators are examining a pattern of alleged punishment, not only what happened during the final hours of the child’s life. The messages described bruises on the boy, disagreements over who would physically punish him and a promise by one of the adults to stop hitting him. Katrina Marie Sudberry, 27, and Gregory Glenn Martin, 30, are jailed while the case moves through court. Sudberry also faces a felony child-abuse charge. Martin is charged with child abuse or neglect causing serious injury and a separate offense involving sex-offender registry information. Neither has been convicted of the homicide allegations.
One exchange cited in court documents was dated July 7, nine days before the boy’s death. Sudberry allegedly told Martin that the child had more bruises while they were still trying to get older bruises to fade. Martin responded by saying the couple needed to decide whether Sudberry would allow him to continue physically punishing the boy, according to the records. In another reported message, after Sudberry confronted Martin and sent photographs of injuries, Martin said he would no longer strike the child and would keep discipline to exercises. The wording is significant to investigators because the communications were created before the emergency call and appear to document the adults discussing the child’s condition in real time.
The messages also complicated the account authorities initially received about who had been caring for the boy. Early court records reported that Sudberry told investigators she had been the only person watching and having custody of her son during the preceding three weeks. Later records obtained by WTKR said Martin lived with her and participated in the alleged physical punishment. Those documents further said Sudberry left the child alone with Martin for about 45 minutes on July 16, the day the boy died. The later evidence does not by itself establish which defendant caused the injuries found at autopsy, but it widened the investigation to include Martin and ultimately preceded a second murder charge.
Police were first called to the home in the 300 block of Walden Pond Court at approximately 2:19 p.m. July 16. The emergency was reported as an unresponsive child. Medics attempted lifesaving treatment at the apartment and then transported the 5-year-old to a hospital. He died later that evening. Newport News police said an autopsy performed by the Office of the Medical Examiner found that he died from internal injuries caused by blunt-force trauma. That finding changed the nature of the police response from an emergency involving an unresponsive child to a homicide investigation.
When officers entered the home, court records said, the boy had widespread bruising. Sudberry was in a back bedroom, according to the records. Detectives interviewed her after the child was taken for medical treatment. Investigators said she acknowledged using physical punishment and told them she had disciplined her son with her hands and a belt. The records also said she required him to perform push-ups and wall squats as punishment. Authorities said some bruising patterns were consistent with forms of corporal punishment described during those interviews. A belt and a buckle that had separated from it were recovered from the home, according to reporting based on the court documents.
The broken buckle later became connected to another disputed part of the timeline. According to the subsequently released records, Sudberry said the belt was intact before she left the child alone with Martin that morning. She reported noticing after she returned that the buckle had broken off. The belt was described as an item both adults used for discipline. Authorities have not publicly said that the broken buckle, standing alone, establishes when the boy’s fatal injuries occurred or who caused them. Instead, it is one piece among the physical and electronic evidence investigators gathered while reconstructing the child’s final days.
The boy’s condition earlier on July 16 also figures prominently in the case. Sudberry told investigators that her son had vomited and appeared lethargic that morning, according to court records. She said she continued checking on him while he was in bed and she was doing household work. She later found him unresponsive on the floor. The documents said she called her own mother, who told her to call 911. Asked by investigators why she had not sought medical attention sooner, Sudberry allegedly replied that she “knew how it would look,” referring to the bruises on her son’s body. That statement is now part of the evidence described in the criminal complaint.
The autopsy showed why investigators considered the medical emergency so serious. Records described injuries to several organs in the child’s abdomen, including the liver and kidney, as well as damage involving his stomach, diaphragm and intestines. Police summarized the cause of death more broadly as internal injuries from blunt-force trauma. The detailed findings are disturbing, but they are relevant because they support the homicide classification and provide a medical basis for the charges. Authorities have not publicly released a full forensic timeline showing precisely when each injury occurred, and the available reports do not establish that every bruise or injury resulted from the same incident.
Sudberry was arrested July 17, one day after the child died. Newport News police announced that she had been charged with second-degree murder and felony child abuse. Martin was arrested later as the investigation expanded. His arrest followed the disclosure of materials indicating that he had access to the child and had allegedly participated in physical discipline. Police charged him with second-degree murder and child abuse or neglect causing serious injury in addition to the registry-related offense. The addition of Martin as a defendant marked the largest development after the original case against Sudberry because authorities were no longer alleging responsibility by only one adult in the household.
A neighbor’s account provides one of the few independent observations reported from immediately before the child’s death. Elena Sierson told WAVY that she saw Sudberry and her son outside the apartment complex the day before the 911 call. Sierson said she and her own children tried to interact with the boy and described Sudberry as forcefully dragging him toward a vehicle. The observation does not identify the cause of the fatal injuries and has not been presented as proof of the homicide charges. It does, however, add an outside witness account from within roughly a day of the medical emergency.
The case now rests on several kinds of evidence that could have different roles as proceedings continue. The autopsy establishes the medical cause of death reported by police. The seized belt and broken buckle provide physical evidence from the residence. Sudberry’s interview supplies statements about her own disciplinary practices, the boy’s symptoms and the timing of the emergency call. The text-message exchanges document alleged conversations between the two adults before the death. The neighbor’s account offers a limited observation outside the home. What remains unresolved publicly is how prosecutors will connect each category of evidence to each defendant and whether either defendant will challenge the accuracy, interpretation or admissibility of any of it.
Sudberry and Martin remained detained in the Newport News Jail in the latest available reports. Both were scheduled for court appearances Sept. 9. No trial has occurred, and the allegations contained in police statements and court documents have not been proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Until the cases are resolved, the texts and other evidence describe the prosecution’s developing theory of events rather than a final judicial finding of what happened inside the Walden Pond Court home.
Author note: Last updated August 24, 2026.