Brooklyn Park woman indicted on murder charges in death of 8-year-old son

A Brooklyn Park woman has been indicted by a grand jury on murder charges in connection to the death of her eight-year-old son.

The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office said 36-year-old Tasha Tennin was indicted on a charge of first-degree murder while committing child abuse with a past pattern of child abuse, and second-degree murder while committing a felony for causing the death of her eight-year-old son in February 2018.

Tennin was indicted Thursday and arrested Friday, according to the attorney’s office.

According to a criminal complaint, Tennin contacted police and paramedics on Feb. 1, 2018, at about 7:30 a.m. to report her son was unresponsive. After arriving, police found her son lying on the living room floor without a pulse, and noted he was cold to the touch. Tennin told officers she tried to wake her son for school that morning but he was unresponsive and she carried him to the living room.

Charges: Woman locked son, 8, in cold garage, killing him

Officers and medical personnel all described the boy’s body as being "ice cold," as if he’d been outside, the complaint states. He was pronounced dead at 8:14 a.m.

The complaint states Tennin told detectives that her son came home from school sick, lethargic and without an appetite the day before. However, staff at the boy’s school told investigators he’d been playing and jumping on a trampoline.

Police reported the boy appeared to have urinated in his pajamas, and a sergeant noticed a puddle of frozen liquid in the attached garage. When police came back with a search warrant the following week, the liquid was gone. The complaint states the medical examiner’s autopsy didn’t find an anatomical cause for the child’s death, but on the boy’s back there were multiple scars and lesions indicative of abuse.

The boy’s siblings told foster parents months later that the boy had gotten into trouble on Jan. 31, 2018 and was told by Tennin to sit outside in the garage. She then allegedly locked the garage and left him outside for the night, the complaint states. The boy was found unable to breathe the next morning.

Tennin is expected to make her first court appearance Monday, and the state has asked bail to be set at $2 million.