Police: Couple beat 12-year-old, left him in laundry room to die

PALM BAY, Fla. — A Palm Bay couple is accused of beating a 12-year-old boy and then forcing him into a room and leaving him to die.

Jason Godleski, 33, is facing charges of manslaughter of a child and failure to report a death. The police chief said Thursday that a warrant has also been issued for his girlfriend, Samarial Dubose, 30.

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Palm Bay police said Godleski contacted them from a dispatch line in the lobby of the police department on Oct. 22 and told them his son, Noah Godleski, was dead inside his home on Colonial Avenue.

Officers said when they searched the home, they found the boy dead inside the laundry room.

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“Noah’s body was found in the residence’s laundry room with obvious forms of trauma, evidence of trauma and more disturbingly he had been there for sometime,” Chief Nelson Moya said.

When officers interviewed Dubose, who was in Connecticut with him and the couple’s three children, she said on Oct. 17 Noah had been “misbehaving.” As punishment, she said Godleski locked the boy in the laundry room and left him there for several days isolated from the rest of the family.

Dubose told officers she heard Godleski enter the laundry room, yell at Noah, beat him and then leave him in the room.

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Days later, the woman said Godleski told her he was going to drive her and their three children to Connecticut, leaving Noah alone in the home.

In a recorded call, Godleski told a family member that Noah was alive for a few days but dead when they left for Connecticut.

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Godleski is being held at the Brevard County Jail on no bond.

Police said the Department of Children and Families was contacted by a school employee in March 2020 about an allegation of abuse involving Godleski and Dubose. Officers said said they were not contacted and the case was closed as unfounded.

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Noah was withdrawn from Turner Elementary in May of that same year.

Officers said the Department of Children and Families has custody of the remaining children in Connecticut.

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