Prosecutor: 3-month-old was found dead in bucket near kitchen trash can

Father jailed, awaiting charges in boy’s death, beating of mother. Plus, tensions continue between teachers and the LSC school board over new schedules

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PROSECUTOR: 3-MONTH-OLD FOUND DEAD IN BUCKET NEAR KITCHEN TRASH CAN

In disturbing details released Monday in court documents, Tippecanoe County prosecutors say Jacob Moneus, a 3-month-old Lafayette boy who was the subject of a Silver Alert search Saturday, was found by police Sunday morning in an orange, snap-seal bucket next to a kitchen trash can in his family’s apartment.

Police found Jacob in with a dark-colored liquid after checking the bucket during a second search of the apartment on Lexington Court 4:53 a.m. Sunday, according to court documents, filed Monday to request a 72-hour hold on Eliasard Moneus, Jacob’s father.

Jacob Moneus (Photo provided)

Eliasard Moneus, 27, had already been arrested and was being held in the Tippecanoe County Jail on suspicion of domestic battery and attempted murder on his wife and Jacob’s mother.

An autopsy Monday afternoon showed the child died of asphyxia, Tippecanoe County Coroner Carrie Costello said. Costello ruled the preliminary manner of death as homicide. Costello said that the investigation showed asphyxiation, at this point, but that the bucket being sealed did not cause the death.

Costello said her office had not tested the liquid. Lafayette police declined to say what it was.

According to Monday’s court filing, police started investigating Saturday afternoon after Jacob’s mother drove herself to IU Arnett Hospital for wounds she told officers came from Moneus, the father of Jacob and her husband of 11 months.

According to the prosecutor’s account, she told police that Moneus got upset with her on Aug. 5 and left, and that the two hadn’t spoken until he arrived at the apartment on Lexington Court on Saturday. She told police she was in the apartment watching a church service on TV with Jacob when Moneus came in and took the child. She said Moneus returned about a half-hour later, came into a bedroom and struck her several times with a tire iron or a wrench. She wound up with a fractured skull, police said.

According to the court filing, she told police she did not know where Jacob was. Police searched the apartment Saturday but could not find him.

Indianapolis police found Eliasard Moneus in an apartment complex in Lawrence later that day. At the Tippecanoe County Jail, according to the court filing, Moneus admitted that he’d hit his wife two or three times with the tool from his vehicle and had hoped she’d die from the injuries.

According to the court filing, Moneus told police that Jacob was at the apartment when the battery happened. He told officers that the child was OK, but he did not offer any other details about where he was, according to the court filing.

Police issued a statewide Silver Alert Saturday night, saying that Jacob had been abducted.

Police found the child at the apartment, in the seals bucket, the following morning.

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TENSIONS CONTINUE TO BUILD BETWEEN TEACHERS, LSC BOARD OVER NEW SCHEDULES

Lafayette teachers give a speaker a standing ovation Monday at the Hiatt Administration Center. (Photo: Dave Bangert)

The tensions building over the summer between teachers and the Lafayette school board didn’t lift Monday night, the first meeting since Lafayette School Corp. rolled out a new start/dismissal schedule and transportation plan meant to get buses to schools on time.

More than 90 LSC teachers, parents and bus drivers filled the Hiatt Center’s meeting room, several telling school board members ways the new schedules weren’t working during the first week of school.

Two weeks after teachers announced that they wouldn’t work beyond their contract hours to accommodate longer school days – done in the name of making a new three-tier bus system work – without a contract that came with pay to cover it, they didn’t let up Monday, reiterating points made at a half-dozen LSC board meetings since the start of summer break.

At one point, LSC Board President Bob Stwalley suggested that “let’s not plow the same ground,” as teachers and parents talked about buses that ran late to start the year, keeping teachers after their scheduled day to make sure younger students got on safely.

That request was greeted with groans and a few calls for the school board to adjust a decision it made on schedules in the spring.

Stwalley got more blowback after he suggested the board adjourn, as more people raised their hands to give three minutes of testimony during the public comment section of the meeting, even though they hadn’t signed up in advance to speak.

“What,” came one response, “you don’t want to stay late? Now you know how it feels.”

“I have never felt so disrespected, and from your voice specifically,” Zach Brennan, a math teacher at Lafayette Jeff, told Stwalley. “If you want us to keep coming back and sign the list, we will continue to plow the same ground over and over and over again until we feel heard. … This is the ground we have. If I plow it and the seeds we’re planting don’t take any root whatsoever – and it doesn’t sound like they are – the only options we have are either keep plowing or quit. I’ve never thought about leaving Lafayette School Corp., and maybe it’s time for me to start looking at some other options.”

The situation goes back to March, when LSC shuffled start and dismissal times for the next academic year after a transportation committee of parents, teachers and administrators spent seven months coming up with ways to deal with a persistent bus driver shortage that had caused lost time for students in class. The transportation committee recommended one option that would have added 15 minutes to the school day at LSC’s elementaries. The school board went with a second option that added 35 minutes for the elementary buildings, starting in August. That pushed elementary teachers from 6.5 contract hours a day to 7 hours, before new contract talks can start in September. In LSC’s secondary schools, those contract hours bumped up from 6.92 hours to 7. Over the course of a 180-day school year, the change for elementary teachers works out to roughly two weeks of current work shifts uncompensated, teachers have said.

The start of the school year brought initial logistical glitches that had buses running late, trickling down to Sunnyside Intermediate School, where some kids didn’t get home until close to 6 p.m. after the 4:05 p.m. last bell. LSC Superintendent Les Huddle had called that first day unacceptable. On Monday, Huddle said problems were being worked out and things had been running smoother following opening day.

School board members did not respond directly to comments Monday, which lines up with their policy. At a July work session, Stwalley said the board opted for the schedule because member believed it had the best chance to fulfill children's needs and contribute to the strategic objectives of the corporation. He’d said the school board was under no obligation to follow the transportation committee’s recommendation.

Amber Ma, a teacher at Glen Acres Elementary, told the board that they were taking advantage of every elementary teacher in LSC, in particular.

“It’s not what’s best for teachers and students,” Ma said. “What looks good on paper is wearing us out as teachers. … I wish you understood how demeaning that is to us. We do what’s best for children every day. Please reconsider this and figure out a way to make it work, because it’s not working.”

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