WILLIAM SLOAN - 6 Months -(2010) Callaway (Panhandle/Gulf Coast) FL

By consuming large amounts of liquor and sleeping in the confines of a couch with an infant, one should reasonably expect the result to be the death or serious injury of a child, according to officials.This is the case being brought against John Robert Sloan, 26, of 1406 Berthe Ave., who Bay County Sheriff’s Office investigators have accused of consuming liquor then falling asleep on a couch with his 6-month-old son on June 27, 2009. Sloan rolled onto his back on top of the child in the night causing the baby to asphyxiate, according to a news release from BCSO.Sloan was arrested Friday on a charge of child neglect resulting in the death of a child. He is being held in the Bay County Jail, where bond had not been set Friday night.Though he lived in Springfield at the time, Sloan and his son were visiting friends at a Callaway apartment complex. Sloan told investigators he had been drinking and friends at the apartment said Sloan bragged about almost finishing a bottle of Lord Calvert liquor on his own.The use of alcohol played a large part in the decision to charge the father, Maj. Tommy Ford said. A lot of evidence had to be weighed and carefully considered when making the decision to charge Sloan in his son’s death.According to the incident report, Sloan and his son went to sleep on his friend’s couch at about midnight and the baby was fine at that time, he told deputies. At about 4 a.m. he woke up and played video games for about 30 minutes before going back to sleep. He woke up at 10:47 a.m. and found he could not wake his son, who was lying on his back slightly propped up on a pillow. When he discovered the child wasn’t breathing he called 911 and began CPR. EMTs declared the child dead on scene.The medical examiner found the child’s cause of death to be positional or compressional asphyxia.The difference between abuse and neglect is largely intent, according to Florida statutes, Ford said. Though he may not have intended to harm the child “a reasonable person with reasonable faculties” would have known the act of drinking heavily while responsible for a child and then sleeping in the close quarters of the couch could result in serious physical or mental injury or the risk of death.

Charges dropped in baby's death

February 25, 2011 05:13:00 PM


PANAMA CITY — Manslaughter charges were dropped Friday against a man who rolled over his infant son, killing him, while the two slept on a couch.

Tonya Osburn, William Sloan’s mother, pleaded with Judge Elijah Smiley to dismiss homicide charges against her ex-boyfriend, John Sloan, who is William’s father.

“I know he’ll do more damage to himself mentally than the state could ever do,” she told Smiley.

Smiley dismissed the case against Sloan, who was drinking the night before he accidently smothered his 6-month-old son on June 28, 2009, on a couch in a Panama City apartment. The state didn’t protest a motion for dismissal filed by Sloan’s attorney, Walter Smith.

Smith argued the facts didn’t support the charges. John Sloan had been drinking the night before William died, but there was no evidence he was drunk when he smothered the baby.

In order to prove its case, the state would need to prove the accident would not have happened if alcohol was not involved, prosecutor John O’Brien said. William Sloan was still alive at 9 a.m., and Sloan called 911 around 10:45.

Sloan’s family was relieved by the decision. Several family members gathered and hugged outside the courtroom.

“I’m glad to have this put past us so we can get on with our lives and grieve,” Osburn said.

“There’s one thing I know: that boy wouldn’t do anything to hurt a child,” Leroy Sloan, John Sloan’s father, said after the hearing Friday.

Sloan was released from the Bay County Jail on Friday afternoon. His case had been scheduled to go to trial April 4.