Man charged with fatally beating autistic boy near St. Louis

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Prosecutors have filed murder charges against an East St. Louis man who is accused of fatally beating an autistic boy.

The child, 4-year-old La’Marion Thomure, died Wednesday, according to the St. Clair County coroner’s office.

The St. Clair County state’s attorney late Thursday filed charges against Demetrius D. Stewart, 27. Stewart’s bond was set at $1 million on a count of first-degree murder and on three counts of violating an order of protection, said Chris Allen, an assistant state’s attorney.

All of the charges are felonies. No defense attorney was listed in court records Friday for Stewart. He lives in the 1800 block of Winstanley Avenue in East St. Louis.

Charges say that Stewart repeatedly struck La’Marion on his face and body Tuesday and Wednesday, knowing his actions would create a “strong probability of death or great bodily harm.” Allen did not say say if, or how, the boy was related to Stewart.

The orders of protection were issued against Stewart in August, ordering him to stay at least 500 feet away from La’Marion and two of the boy’s relatives.

East St. Louis police went to a home Wednesday on Winstanley Avenue after being called about an unresponsive child. That’s where the coroner’s office pronounced the boy dead. The Southern Illinois Child Death Investigation Task Force is investigating the boy’s death

We are trying to wrap our heads around this tragedy,” the boy’s grandmother, Minnie Thomure, said in an online fundraiser to help pay La’Marion’s funeral expenses.

She said La’Marion was diagnosed with autism as a 1-year-old. “He’d make you smile even on your bad days,” she wrote in an online plea.