The Milwaukee man who fatally punched his child over a piece of cheesecake will spend the next two decades behind bars.
Fox 6 reports 30-year-old Travis Stackhouse was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Tuesday, nearly two months after he pleaded guilty in the death of his 5-year-old son, Sir Amer Stackhouse. Prosecutors say the incident occurred in 2019, after Stackhouse allegedly became angry that his kids were eating a cheesecake he had received for Father’s Day.
A criminal complaint states officers were called to Stackhouse’s residence in the early hours of June 21, after the boy’s mother realized he was unresponsive. Authorities say they found Sir Amer dead inside the home, and were initially told the child had sustained injuries after falling down the stairs. However, the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s Office determined Sir Amer’s cause of death was blunt force trauma to the abdomen, after concluding the child had suffered a ruptured stomach, bruised kidneys, and a torn adrenal gland.
Stackhouse admitted to striking the child during a court hearing in early May. It was at that time he pleaded guilty to second-degree reckless homicide, child abuse, and child neglect—charges that collectively carried up to 37 years in prison.
“Basically in Milwaukee County, basically in the City of Milwaukee, everybody shrugs their shoulders at homicides. No one cares,” Judge David Borowski said during Tuesday’s sentencing. “Occasionally people actually care about child homicides because they’re so awful and so heinous and so just gut-wrenching that occasionally the community, the people in Milwaukee County and others actually care about homicides when children are killed.
“The average person that hears about this case can’t understand how you would beat or punch any living human being as badly as you did in this case – let alone your own child,” the judge continued. “How you can live with yourself ever for a day – I don’t understand.”
Stackhouse was also sentenced to eight years of supervision following his release and ordered to pay restitution.
