Ajax, Ont. father found guilty of second-degree murder in death of infant son

The Bond Street Superior Court of Justice in Oshawa, Ont. can be seen above. (Durham Regional Police/Twitter)

An Ajax, Ont., man has been found guilty of second-degree murder after prosecutors argued he shook his two-month-old son hard enough to inflict fatal head injuries.

A jury deliberated for just under five hours at Oshawa's Superior Court of Justice Wednesday before handing down its verdict to Alvin Serrano, 25.

Serrano was also found guilty of one count of assault causing bodily harm against the child.

• Download our app to get local alerts on your device
• Get the latest local updates right to your inbox

Baby Xavier was born on Sept. 21, 2020 “without complications and healthy,” Crown attorney Mareike Newhouse told the court during her opening remarks in early January.

He died at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children on Dec. 7. Two weeks earlier, his mother found him in medical distress in their Ajax home after being briefly supervised by Serrano.

Serrano and Xavier’s mother moved into the home, which they shared with the boy’s grandmother, in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, the jury heard.

The prosecution suggested Serrano was not satisfied with the arrangement, however, and in the weeks leading up to the infant’s death, the couple began to argue increasingly, over one topic in particular – Serrano’s handling of Xavier. The jury heard that the new father was repeatedly failing to support his son's head or neck when holding him.

“Ms. Wilkinson was uncomfortable, so she tried to educate him,” the prosecutor said, suggesting that Xavier’s mother went to such lengths as to show Serrano an educational video, presented as evidence in court, on best practices for handling infants.

On Nov. 21, 2020, Serrano was alone with Xavier following an argument with the boy’s mother, who’d gone down the street to a relative’s house, the jury heard. It was then, the prosecution alleged, Serrano inflicted the injuries upon Xavier, shaking him after he began to cry.

“By the time (the mother) came back, something was wrong,” Newhouse told the jury. “Xavier had stopped crying. Instead, he was making a strange sound – a sound she had never heard before.”

Testing completed at SickKids revealed that Xavier had suffered swelling in his brain and a brain bleed, despite no external sign of injury. The child had also presented with five broken ribs that a pathologist later found had been sustained weeks before the Nov. 21 incident.

Serrano, who testified in his own defence, denied hurting his son. His lawyer, Michael Mandelcorn, argued that the Crown's evidence was circumstantial only.

Following the verdict, Serrano stepped into custody. He is set to appear in an Oshawa courtroom again on March 24 for sentencing.