Father whipped 5-year-old son with cord, waited 13 mins to call 911, arrest report says

LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) - A father reportedly whipped his 5-year-old son with a cable box cord before the boy’s death and waited 13 minutes after his son stopped breathing before calling police, according to an arrest report from Henderson Police.

Gerald Oglesby was arrested March 16 and booked on a murder charge in connection with his 5-year-old son’s death. According to the arrest report, Oglesby said he whipped his son as a form of discipline for “back talking.”

Oglesby called 911 around 1:30 a.m. March 16, saying his son was unresponsive. Oglesby reportedly made a comment to dispatch that “he didn’t want to flee the scene” and “they needed to get someone (first responders) there.”

Oglesby said the last time the child was breathing was 13 minutes prior to the 911 call.

Police observed visible injuries to head and torso of child and the child was determined dead on scene. A neighbor said she heard loud noises, “believed it was a body being thrown onto the ground in apartment” and said the thumping continued for two hours. The neighbor said she tried to contact the resident in the apartment but no one answered and she didn’t call 911, the report said.

Oglesby told police he was awarded custody of his son in Feb. 2021. Oglesby told police he started using physical discipline around that same time, and said he was “forced” to discipline his son by whipping him with a phone charging cord in Dec. 2021 because he started “back talking.”

On March 15, Oglesby said he saw his child watching a TV show he wasn’t supposed to be watching. Oglesby said the child “back talked” him and Oglesby used the cord on the cable box to whip him, splitting the child’s chin open, the report said. Oglesby reportedly whipped the child again later that night because the child didn’t want to go to bed, the report said. Oglesby also hit the child in the abdomen with a slipper, the arrest report said.

At this point Oglesby said he knew he hit the child too hard, the arrest report said. Oglesby said the child wasn’t acting normal and laid down. Shortly after, the child vomited, Oglesby said in the report.

Oglesby could tell something was wrong but didn’t want to call the police “because we would not understand his method of discipline,” the arrest report said.

Oglesby performed CPR but got no response, the report said. Oglesby said he realized the child was dead and texted the mother of the child “a couple of good pictures that were previously stored on his phone” before texting the sister that the boy died because he had whipped him too hard, the report said.

Oglesby then started smoking marijuana before calling 911, the report said. Oglesby said 911 dispatchers instructed him on how to do CPR, but he refused because he had already tried it and it didn’t work.

Court records show Oglesby’s next court appearance was set for March 21.

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