April 18, 2012
Six-year-old Afton Allison died Sunday night and his father, Anthony Blake Viles, is currently under arrest for allegedly beating him to death. King 5 News has more on this heartbreaking story:
Afton used to live in Washington with his mother and stepfather. After child protective services removed him from his mother’s home for neglect, they placed him with his biological father, who he had never met.
The tragedy has rocked the community of Bannock County, Idaho. While details are still emerging, KPVI News 6 has details on Viles’ background and the County Prosecutor’s response about the case:
Viles has a lengthy criminal record and prosecutors are still piecing together a messy custody situation that resulted in Viles gaining custody over the child for a short amount of time until his death.
“We are looking into some of those particular situations,” continued [Chief Deputy Prosecutor Vic] Pearson. “There have been some custody issues in the past that happened in another state but ultimately we are still looking into those. You’ve got to understand this is the beginning stages of an investigation.”
As of now, it appears as though Afton was moved from a neglectful home into an abusive home with a father he had never met. Prosecutors are currently waiting on the results of medical exams to determine the cause of death, but have said that Afton suffered a “significant” head injury.
Afton’s mother, Jessica Allison Wrigley, was present at Viles’ arraignment for first-degree murder and had this to say about her son’s death:
“I haven’t even had a chance to walk away from it, to decompress, and to look at it from a different aspect, because of the nature of his death. And once everything has been put aside, then maybe I can, I can find out how to walk away from it intact.”
Original stories: www.king5.com/news/local/Father-147864715.html andwww.kpvi.com/content/news/local/story/Update-Viles-Charged-with-First-Degree-Murder-in/sybXDLGPk0aI80fXAid3zg.cspx