The state attorney’s office intends to seek an indictment against William Thomason for first-degree murder in the death of his 8-week-old daughter Braelyn.
“We expect to present to the grand jury in approximately three weeks our case for an indictment on first-degree murder,” State Attorney Bill Eddins said Friday.
An arrest warrant charging Thomason with an open count of murder was served Friday afternoon at the Okaloosa County Jail.
Eddins said his office must obtain a grand jury indictment before pursuing the charge.
If convicted, Thomason faces either life in prison or death.
Thomason, 23, of Fort Walton Beach, has been in jail for aggravated child abuse since he was arrested last Saturday.
Braelyn was hospitalized Sept. 13 with injuries consistent with shaken baby syndrome.
Her mother, Jessica Bias, found the baby unresponsive after leaving her alone for about four hours with Thomason, the biological father.
“When Jessica departed the home, the victim was acting normally and she had no known visible injuries,” investigators reported in Thomason’s arrest warrant.
Bias returned home to find the child unresponsive “and noticed several injuries on her that were not there before she departed the residence,” the warrant said.
Braelyn never showed signs of brain function after she was taken to Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola, according to the warrant. She died at 9:40 p.m. Monday and an autopsy was conducted Wednesday.
Dr. Jason Foland at Sacred Heart’s Pediatric Intensive Care Unit told deputies he found signs that indicated “traumatic brain injury” had caused the baby’s death.
Injuries suffered included bruising, “loss of grey-white matter in the brain” and hemorrhaging in the eyes.
Medical Examiner Dr. Andrea Minyard determined in her autopsy that “abusive head trauma” had left the child unresponsive immediately after she was hurt. Minyard also noted “there appeared to be several rib fractures in addition to the other injuries.”
Thomason has an extensive criminal history, including a 2010 arrest on four counts of battery and one count of felony battery that followed a fight in which four men reportedly attacked by Thomason and friends were knocked unconscious.
Prosecutors eventually dropped the charges.
Contact Daily News Staff Writer Tom McLaughlin at 850-315-4435 or tmclaughlin@nwfdailynews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TomMnwfdn.
