Man Gets 25 Years in 3-Year-Old Boy’s Beating Death in Eagan

HASTINGS, Minn. (AP) _ The boyfriend of a Minnesota foster mother has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for the fatal beating of a 3-year-old boy in her care.

Twenty-eight-year-old Charles Homich was sentenced Tuesday after pleading guilty earlier to second-degree murder in the June 2017 death of Zayden Lawson.

Reports say Homich's girlfriend, 32-year-old Zeporia Fortenberry, was sentenced in June to nearly 31/2 years after pleading guilty to second-degree manslaughter.

Authorities found Zayden without a pulse in an Eagan townhome. He was pronounced dead at a hospital.

Investigators say Fortenberry worked a night shift the previous evening and asked Homich to care for her two biological children and two foster children, Zayden and his younger brother.

Fortenberry said Homich would ``lose his cool'' if he had to change Zayden's diaper.