A soldier forced his girlfriend’s misbehaving 5-year-old son to get out of his car along an Alabama highway in the dark, where the youngster was fatally struck by another vehicle, authorities said.
Bryan Starr, a 35-year-old active-duty Army sergeant at Fort Benning in Georgia, is facing a murder charge in the death of his longtime girlfriend’s son, Austin Birdseye, who died at a hospital Sunday after being hit on Alabama Highway 165, the Ledger-Enquirer reported.
Starr told deputies the boy started acting “unruly” in his Dodge Charger, prompting him to pull into a church parking lot and order him to get out into the rain and darkness.
Starr said he then lost track of Austin until he spotted several other cars stopped along the highway, where the boy was struck by an oncoming Toyota Avalon, Russell County Sheriff Heath Taylor told reporters Monday.
Taylor said the driver of the Toyota was not at fault.
“There’s no indication that they had any chance of not hitting the little guy,” the sheriff told reporters.
Austin was hit just two miles from his home in Fort Mitchell, which his mom, Christina Birdseye, shares with the soldier.
“What do you say to that?” Taylor told reporters. “What is your thought process when you tell a 5-year-old child to get out of the car on a rainy night, because they were being loud in the car?”
State troopers will handle the accident investigation while sheriff’s officials conduct the murder probe, Taylor said, adding that the incident is “just heartbreaking.”
State law allows anyone to be charged with murder if they “recklessly engage in conduct which creates a grave risk of death to a person other than himself or herself, and thereby causes the death of another person,” the newspaper reported.
Starr — a sergeant first class from Marengo, Illinois, with 17 years of service — has turned himself in to the Russell County Sheriff’s Office, WTVM reported.
Starr has previously been deployed to Iraq and is currently assigned to the 3rd Squadron, 16th Cavalry Regiment, 316th Cavalry Brigade, Fort Benning officials said late Monday.
“We are deeply saddened by this tragic event and extend our heartfelt condolences to the family of the deceased,” Fort Benning spokesman Ben Garrett said in a statement.
Starr will be released on bond after he’s processed through jail, Taylor told the Ledger-Enquirer. It’s unclear if he’s hired an attorney who could speak on his behalf.
