Marion County woman charged with murder in the death of her 17-month-old son

MARION COUNTY, Fla. — A 36-year-old woman was arrested Monday on a second-degree murder charge in connection with the death of her 17-month-old son, the Marion County Sheriff’s Office said.

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Deputies said that on April 27, they were called to a Southeast 42nd Avenue home in the Summerfield neighborhood after Jermiyah Puskac was discovered unresponsive.

The infant was taken to AdventHealth Belleview Emergency Room before being transferred to UF Health Shands Hospital.

Detectives said that Tracie Renee Puskac, the child’s mother, told them that Jermiyah had been banging his head on the floor at about 8:30 p.m. April 26, so she moved him to a safe spot and held him down.

They said she told them at 10 p.m., he became “stiff as a board,” and she put him to bed.

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Puskac said that when she woke up at about 7 a.m. April 27, the boy’s lips were blue and his breathing was shallow, so she asked her mother to call 911.

“Over the course of several interviews with Puskac, her versions of the night’s events continued to change, giving detectives different accounts of how Jermiyah hit his head,” the Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.

When detectives asked Puskac why she did not call 911 when the infant “became stiff” the previous night, they said she told them she did not want the Florida Department of Children and Families to take her children away from her again.

Officials said the agency has an open case involving Puskac and had previously removed her children from her home.

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Jermiyah died of his injuries April 29.

On Friday, the 8th Circuit Medical Examiner’s Office released his autopsy results, concluding that he died from complications of a skull fracture, a subdural hemorrhage and a traumatic brain and spinal cord injury due to abusive head and neck trauma.

Detectives said they determined that Jermiyah’s injuries were too severe to have been caused by any of the scenarios that Puskac claimed had happened.

A warrant was issued for her arrest, and she was arrested at her home Monday.

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Puskac was booked into the Marion County Jail, where she is being held without bail.

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