JACKSONVILLE BEACH, Fla. – A Jacksonville Beach mother accused in the death of her 3-year-old son was among two first-degree murder indictments announced by the State Attorney’s Office on Thursday.
Amy Oliver was arrested in January after her son was found unresponsive in a bedroom at a home on Republic Drive in Jacksonville Beach in October. The boy later died.
Recommended Videos
Court records show the child was at the center of a custody dispute between his parents.
According to an arrest report, authorities were sent to the home after the child’s father called for help, saying the child wasn’t breathing. The boy was taken to a hospital and police found Oliver had locked herself in a bathroom and refused to come out, the report said.
Police said they found a purse lying on the floor of a bathroom in the home and that a controlled substance was found inside the bag.
The motion also revealed that while police were trying to get Oliver out of the bathroom, a text message “strongly suggested that Defendant made a premeditated decision” to take the boy’s life and then her own, for the purpose of inflicting pain on the boy’s father and his family.
Oliver is also charged with aggravated child abuse, aggravated assault on an emergency care worker, and aggravated manslaughter of a child.
In an unrelated case -- Garyon Gaston, who is accused in the 2019 death of a child, has also been indicted for first-degree murder. He is also charged with aggravated child abuse after a child left in his care arrived at a hospital with broken bones, bruises and bleeding “indicative of severe abuse.” The child later died.
Gaston was previously charged with second-degree murder.