Florida man avoids death penalty after 3-year-old found beaten, stabbed

VIERA, Fla. (Court TV) — A Florida man will not face a potential death sentence for the death of a child after pleading no contest to multiple charges as part of a deal with prosecutors.

Joshua Manns, 30, pleaded no contest to first-degree felony murder, aggravated manslaughter of a child, aggravated child abuse, and felony child abuse on Wednesday, court records show.

Manns had initially denied any responsibility for the death of 3-year-old Jameson Nance, who had been left in his care when he died. On June 11, 2021, Nance’s mother, Erica Dotson, called 911 after Manns called her and said something was wrong with her son. She said that when she arrived home, Manns was nowhere in sight, but Jameson was “lying on the bathroom floor with his arm stuck in the upward position.”

Officers who arrived at the scene quickly determined that the child was dead. A handwritten note at the scene, allegedly from Manns, claimed that he had suffered a seizure, and when he woke up, the child was floating in the bathtub. The note also said that “no one would believe him and [he] does not want to spend the rest of his life in prison for something he didn’t do.”

WARNING—Sensitive Content: Despite Manns’ description of what happened, the medical examiner determined that the child had been dead for six to eight hours before police arrived and that his death was not drowning-related. Injuries were documented all over Jameson’s body, including two swollen eyes, bruising to his face, an open wound to his neck and jaw area, and blood coming from his earlobe. The medical examiner found evidence of injuries spanning weeks, including a broken tooth that “was broken and ‘pushed’ into the gums, a laceration to the jaw, a right rib fracture, damage to the esophagus, and sharp impact injuries to the head, which included a single stab wound of the upper scalp and six stab wounds (three fresh and three healing) to the right scalp.”

Dotson told officers that in a separate incident days before her son’s death, Manns claimed he had a seizure when Jameson somehow hit his head, causing a severe injury. The couple treated the toddler with Tylenol and ice packs for his pain and fevers but never sought help from a doctor.

Manns’ deal with prosecutors calls for him to serve 60 years in prison for the child’s murder; two additional sentences of 30 years and a third for 26 years will run concurrently to the first sentence, WFTV reported. Manns’ sentencing is scheduled for June 22.

Dotson faces the same charges as Manns and has pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty in her case. Dotson previously stood trial in 2025; that trial ended with a mistrial after the judge found that prosecutors had not complied with discovery requirements. Her next trial is scheduled to start in July.

Source: courttv.com, Staff, June 18, 2026

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
— Oscar Wilde

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