An Idaho man will spend decades behind bars for the 2021 death of his 2-month-old daughter.
According to the Kootenai County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, Dyllan Dwight Towles was sentenced to 50 years in state prison for second-degree murder. He’ll become eligible for parole after serving at least half of the sentence.
A news release provided by the attorney’s office stated that the incident happened on September 18, 2021. Towles called 911 and said the baby wasn’t breathing. First responders arrived and found the victim “laying face up and unresponsive on the floor.”
Police noted that during life-saving measures, they noticed bruising around the baby’s “cheek, a bruise on her right leg, and bite marks on her left forearm, left ankle, and below her knee.” She was rushed to the hospital but subsequently passed away.
Towles later admitted that he became frustrated and bit the baby, then shook her around 20 times.
“When asked about the observed injuries, Towles claimed that he bit the child, ‘shook’ her ‘pretty violently’ approximately 20 times, and ‘played with her legs’ in an attempt to gain a response from the child after she suddenly became unresponsive,” prosecutors noted.
The Spokane County Medical Examiner’s Office said the victim died after blunt force injuries to her head, neck, and torso. The examiner noted both new and old injuries, including a brain hemorrhage. She also tested positive for COVID-19, which initially paused her official cause of death.
In December 2022, the Kootenai County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office consulted with doctors from the University of Utah and Washington State University, according to ABC 2. After reviewing the autopsy and evidence, the doctors concluded that the child’s cause of death was blunt force trauma, not COVID-19.
On July 6, 2023, the Post Falls Police Department apprehended Towles on a first-degree murder warrant. During questioning, Towles initially stuck to his original story but eventually confessed to shaking the child to death because she wouldn’t eat or stop crying.
Court records indicate that in 2019, Towles, then 19, was charged with felony injury to a child after engaging in a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old girl. At the time of his daughter’s murder, he was still on probation for the previous conviction.
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[Feature Photo: Dyllan Dwight Towles/Kootenai County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office]
