When Hunter Means was just a bump in her belly, his mother said she kept Taylor Swift’s country ballad “Never Grow Up” playing on repeat.
“I never imagined that it’d be a reality,” the Portland mom said in a statement read in court Friday, as her ex-husband was sentenced to 12 years and six months in state prison for killing their 6-week-old baby in 2021.
The former husband and baby’s father, 23-year-old Dakota K. Means, declined to speak during the brief hearing. Multnomah County Circuit Judge Andrew Lavin convicted him of first-degree manslaughter and criminal mistreatment as part of a plea deal that dropped a count of second-degree murder and other charges.
Dakota Means will receive credit for time served and is eligible for sentence reductions for good behavior during the last 2½ years of his punishment.
The couple were watching Hunter Means together inside a North Portland apartment complex on April 17, 2021, when the mother asked Dakota Means to change the baby’s diaper and then stepped out to smoke a cigarette, according to court documents.
Dakota Means shouted for the woman’s help, but when she returned, Hunter Means was limp and unresponsive, the records said.
Hunter Means died in the hospital 67 days later without regaining brain function, according to a bail memo, which listed the cause of death as blunt force trauma. The woman divorced him later that year.
During a March court hearing where Dakota Means was denied bail, pediatrician Dr. Adebimpe Adewusi testified that Hunter Means had suffered multiple brain hemorrhages suggesting he had been physically abused repeatedly.
Dakota Means was on federal probation after being convicted of assaulting a federal officer during the 2021 protests at the time of his arrest.
After a childhood spent in the foster care system, the baby’s mother said she was unable to see the “red flags” because she had always dreamed of being part of a loving family. She continues to raise their other child and now has a steady job and home, according to the statement read by her lawyer, Liann Crane.
“Hunter’s death still to this day makes me feel a hole in my heart. It will never go away,” the mother said. “He was my honeybear. My everything.”
— Zane Sparling; zsparling@oregonian.com; 503-319-7083; @pdxzane
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