PUTNAM COUNTY, Tenn. (WKRN) — More than 33 months after a toddler died following a slip in the bathtub, his mother’s then-boyfriend has been sentenced for second-degree murder.
According to the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office, investigators responded to an apartment in the 3000 block of Dodson Branch Highway on May 4, 2022, to help with an unconscious child. Justin Dixon reportedly asked for EMS assistance after his girlfriend’s 2-year-old son, Atlas Copeland, slipped in the tub and accidentally hit his head.
Over the course of the investigation, authorities discovered Atlas’ mother had left him in Dixon’s care while she went to work. However, within an hour of her departure, the sheriff’s office said “Dixon had injured Atlas so severely that he became unresponsive.”
Atlas was brought to Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where he died from his injuries early the next morning, according to law enforcement.
On Dec. 5, 2022, the sheriff’s office said it received a True Bill from the Putnam County Criminal Court Grand Jury indicting Dixon for one count of felony murder and one count of aggravated child abuse. He was arrested for those charges the following day in Hamilton County.
More than two years later, on Friday, Feb. 14, officials announced that Dixon appeared in Putnam County Criminal Court and pleaded guilty to second-degree murder of Atlas. He received a 20-year sentence, which he will need to serve in full.
