Autopsy shows boy beaten to death; adoptive mother charged with slaying

<p>A Bacon County woman charged with murdering her 3-year-old adopted son, then dumping his body in the woods and reporting a fake kidnapping, beat the child to death, according to preliminary autopsy results.</p><p>Ahmad King died from "multiple blunt force injuries," the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said in a news release. Authorities found his body Friday covered in straw on a tree farm in Appling County, about 15 miles from his South Georgia home just east of Alma.</p><p>The GBI has said Mary Jane King, who adopted Ahmad last year, confessed to his slaying, but only after first reporting him kidnapped from the parking lot of a Wal-Mart in Jesup on Jan. 24.</p><p>King, 34, has been charged with felony murder and concealing a death. To convict King of felony murder, meaning a death caused during the commission of another felony, prosecutors won't have to prove King meant to kill her adopted son.</p><p>"We would allege in the indictment an act of cruelty to a child took place ... that caused the child's death without ever necessarily intending the death," said Rick Curry, district attorney for the Waycross Judicial Circuit that includes Bacon County.</p><p>Curry said he could not comment on whether the autopsy indicated Ahmad was beaten with a weapon. Jeff Evans, special agent in charge of the GBI's Douglas office, could not immediately be reached for comment.</p><p>John R. Thigpen Sr., King's defense attorney, declined to comment on the case.</p>

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