Beaumont Man Who Beat, Starved Child To Death Sentenced To 18 Years In Prison

RIVERSIDE, CA — A Beaumont man who severely beat his girlfriend's 4- year-old daughter, as well as starved the child for weeks until she died, was sentenced Friday to 18 years in state prison.

Tyler Lawrence Finley, 30, pleaded guilty last week to murder and three counts of child cruelty, along with sentence-enhancing allegations of inflicting great bodily injury on a victim under 5 years old. Finley's plea was directly to Superior Court Judge Brian Hill, without input or negotiation by the Riverside County District Attorney's Office.

The plea was offered by the defense immediately after a jury had been seated for trial.

During a hearing at the Riverside Hall of Justice Friday, Hill suspended sentencing on the murder count, for reasons unclear. The judge proceeded to impose an upper term sentence for one of the child abuse counts, and then one-third terms for the remaining ones. Factoring in the enhancements, the sentence totaled 18 years.

Hill is a visiting judge, not originally from Riverside County.

According to a trial brief filed by the prosecution, 4-year-old Nicole Blackerby suffered physical trauma that lasted nearly a month before her death in mid-December 2020 in a studio apartment near the intersection of East Sixth Street and Palm Avenue.

The child resided there with her mother, 24-year-old Cheyenne Blackerby, and Finley, who had begun dating the woman after she relocated to the Inland Empire from Arizona in the summer of 2019.

Prosecutors said that not long after the relationship started, Nicole began manifesting signs of abuse and neglect, prompting calls to Child Protective Services in San Bernardino and Riverside counties.

The brief said agents made multiple visits to check on Nicole's welfare, but they did not find anything incriminating, and the girl appeared to be healthy. A visit to a pediatrician in September 2020 also revealed Nicole was at a healthy weight for her height, and there were no outward appearances of physical abuse.

Prosecutors said circumstances likely turned for the worse when Finely and Blackerby moved in together with Nicole at the Beaumont apartment a week before Thanksgiving 2020. At the time, Finley was employed at a Redlands manufacturing plant. However, on Dec. 4, 2020, he suffered an unspecified hand injury and never returned to work.

Autopsy evidence later revealed that just before or around this time, Finley and Blackerby began inflicting injuries to Nicole. Beaumont Police Department detectives and pathologists uncovered that she had been struck with fists or heavy objects to her head, face, thighs, knees and torso.

"The bruising even extended to her feet," according to the brief.

The child's nourishment also stopped. By the time of her death, the county's then-chief medical examiner, Dr. Mark Fajardo, estimated she'd stopped receiving food for at least three weeks. Fluids were also withheld, with evidence that she hadn't received water at least three days before she finally succumbed.

The only person to enter the apartment during the critical period in which the child might have been saved was a handyman, who visited on Dec. 11, 2020, to repair a broken shower head.

He later told police that he had seen the defendant and Cheyenne Blackerby sitting on their sofa foldout bed, with Finley talking on his mobile phone and Blackerby silent.

"Nicole was lying on her back in her bed, with a mask covering her entire face, other than her eyes," the brief stated. "(The handyman) noticed that her eyes were tracking him, as he walked through the apartment, but he never saw any other part of her move."

He completed the repair job and left.

On Dec. 16, Finley and Blackerby visited several stores, and in none of the security surveillance videos were there signs that Nicole was with them. Prosecutors said the pair purchased numerous bottles of sleep aids. That afternoon, Finley sent an obscure text message to Beaumont police, saying "I fear the suicide of someone close," but when a police dispatcher inquired about the person and place, there was no response, according to court papers.

That night, Finley went to a neighbor's apartment, exhibiting signs of drug-induced lethargy, including slurred speech, and asked the person to call 911 due to a medical emergency. When paramedics arrived, they found Blackerby dead from a drug overdose, at which point they also spotted the emaciated figure of Nicole, lying on her back in bed, eyes wide open but deceased, the brief said.

Finley was hospitalized for a brief period for drug toxicity before he was arrested for Nicole's death.

"Dr. Fajardo noticed over 60 separate impacts to her body, including ones to her head," the brief said of the autopsy. "He could see all of Nicole's rib bones, and her hip bones were extremely pronounced. Nicole had a half dozen bruises to her face. All of the bruises were the result of blunt force impact. There were injuries to Nicole's fingers, including a compression injury to her pinkie consistent with crushing. Dr. Fajardo also saw subdural hemorrhage, blood on her brain ... the result of trauma from impact."

Despite all of the wounds, the medical examiner ultimately determined that if she'd only been fed and given enough fluids — even several weeks after starvation — the little girl would have recovered and survived.

Her father had died several years earlier in Texas under undisclosed circumstances, according to the brief.

The defendant had no documented prior felony convictions in Riverside County.