BELLE ROSE — A 26-year-old man arrested on first-degree murder charges in the death of a 3-year-old girl confessed to investigators saying he “maxed out” and attacked the girl when she urinated on the floor and his foot, his arrest warrant said.
Bernard Fleander was booked with first-degree murder on Aug. 13, the same day he brought the unresponsive girl, whose name has not been released, to a hospital in Napoleonville.
Deputies were called to the hospital 3:20 a.m. Staff tried to resuscitate the girl when she arrived, but could not.
The warrant identified Fleander as the girl’s father, but Assumption Parish Sheriff’s deputies say they do not believe he is the biological father of the girl and her twin sister. He acts as their stepfather.
Several other people were at the house on Hwy. 308 where Fleander is accused of injuring the child.
“The witnesses described hearing the father beating the now deceased child in the early morning hours inside the residence,” the warrant said. “They advised that it went on for a moment until they no longer heard the child screaming and crying. They also advised that they could hear the impact sound that would happen when the father struck the child.”
Those witnesses told investigators that Fleander was upset over potty training the little girl.
Witnesses said Fleander “was aggressive verbally and whipped the three-year-old twin females regarding potty training often,” according to the warrant.
The girl’s autopsy showed her to have “a large amount of injuries including fractures, internal contusions, lacerations, and hematoma, across a large amount of the victim’s body,” the warrant said. Her death was classified as a homicide.
Fleander talked to investigators about what happened. The warrant said he told them the girl “soiled her diaper.” He said each of the girls then sat on the toilet for about 10 minutes. One of the girls used the bathroom, but the other did not.
“Fleander recalled that when the victim returned to his area, she proceeded to urinate on the floor, including on his foot,” the warrant said. “He stated he became ‘maxed out’ and began to strike the child with a pinkish piece of footwear,” the warrant said.
He told investigators he was aiming for her “back side” but may have hit her other places because of her “moving and squirming,” the warrant said.
He also said that the girl ran toward the kitchen and he “pushed her in the back of the head,” the warrant said.
It “spooked” him when she went limp and fell forward onto her hands and the front of her body, the warrant said. He said he was not sure if she hit her head in the fall.
She felt like “dead weight” when he picked her up, the warrant said he told deputies, and he tried to do CPR on her on the couch for several minutes. She was still unresponsive and he was not sure if he was doing the CPR correctly, so he asked someone else in the house to drive them to the hospital, the warrant said.
Fleander has been held without bond since his arrest, booking records show.
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