Stepmother of Kenai Whyte admits to beating 3-year-old to death

BOSTON — In court Friday, a Roxbury woman admitted to beating her three-year-old step-son to death.

Maria Buie agreed to a plea deal and was sentenced to nine to 12 years in prison for involuntary manslaughter.

In 2016, her step-son, 3-year-old Kenai Whyte, was found unconscious in his father's home in Roxbury.

An autopsy found he suffered blunt force trauma to the head.

Buie later turned herself in to police.

She had been charged with second-degree murder, which carried a minimum sentence of 15 years behind bars.

“You took it upon yourself to ruin my life. You took my husband and then my son,” Whyte’s biological mother, Ashley Young, said in court. “You know have to live with the fact that you killed an innocent human being who could not protect himself from you.”

Sitting just feet from the woman who killed her son two and a half years ago, a grief-stricken Ashley Young delivered a chilling victim impact statement.

Prosecutors say Buie savagely beat him in her Roxbury home where she lived with her husband, Kenai’s biological father.

The little boy was found unresponsive with bruises and cuts all over his body, a broken neck, and he was bleeding in the head.

She pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter.

Buie declined to address the court, but Kenai Whyte’s grandmother says she will forgive Buie.

MORE: PHOTOS: 3-year-old Kenai Whyte dies after 'traumatic injuries'

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