Benjamin Swann jailed for killing baby in Werribee home
A brutal killer who attacked a baby and then tried to frame the child’s mother will spend at least nine years and six months behind bars.
Benjamin Joseph Swann, 31, gritted his teeth and stared straight ahead as he watched Victoria Supreme Court Justice James Gorton hand down a 13-year sentence with a minimum parole period of 9.5 years on Thursday morning.
Benjamin Swann was sentenced to 13 years in prison for killing his partner’s baby.Credit: Darrian Traynor
Swann pleaded guilty to child murder and admitted deliberately causing trauma to baby Elijah’s head with blunt force while he was angry and upset at a home in Werribee.
When she went to Elijah’s room to calm the crying baby around 4 a.m. on January 19, 2024, the boy’s mother, Elyce, heard a loud explosion.
Swann returned to the bedroom carrying Elijah and told Elyce to “take this fucking baby” before leaving to prepare a bottle.
That’s when Elyce noticed her son was making an unusual wheezing sound and having trouble breathing.
When Swann suggested they call an ambulance, he told her to wait but ignored her when she noticed her son was bruised.
Elijah was taken to the hospital by paramedics, where doctors eventually determined he suffered a brain injury from blunt force trauma to his head that left him unable to survive.
He was taken off life support and died in his mother’s arms in the early hours of January 20, at just 115 days old.
