WORCESTER — A Worcester man charged with inflicting fatal injuries on his 7-year-old son on Father’s Day 2009 pleaded guilty to second-degree murder Tuesday.
Leslie G. Schuler, 41, had been charged with first-degree murder in the death of his son, Nathaniel Turner, but pleaded guilty in Worcester Superior Court to the reduced charge of second-degree murder under an eleventh-hour plea agreement.
The plea came as a jury was about to begin hearing evidence in the case.
Although Schuler is facing a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment with a possibility of parole in 15 years, Judge Daniel M. Wrenn postponed sentencing until Thursday to give members of the victim’s family time to prepare written impact statements.
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Assistant District Attorney Courtney L. Sans said Schuler began physically disciplining his son shortly after the child came to Worcester from Alabama to spend the summer with him in May 2009. The boy, diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, had been living in Alabama with his maternal grandmother, Christine Richardson.
On Father’s Day 2009, Sans said, Schuler disciplined the boy by grabbing him by the neck, knocking him off a chair and causing him to hit his head, and picking him up and dropping him on the floor.
An autopsy determined that Nathaniel, who was pronounced dead two days later, died of blunt force trauma of the head, torso, and extremities, according to Sans.