Myls Dobson died earlier this month. He was starved, beaten, and tortured to death, allegedly at the hands of his caretaker.
Now there's a haunting look at his life through a video obtained by our partners at DNAinfo.
It is a recording of an exchange between Ashlee Dobson and a South Carolina sheriff's deputy in 2011. The mother of Myls Dobson, then 2 years old, admits that she hit the child in the head after he ran into traffic in a supermarket parking lot.
"I try to caught him. And then I picked him up and I popped him. Right here," Ashlee Dobson said in the video.
Dobson also admitted that later in the day, Myls was knocked unconsious. She claimed he accidentally fell down the stairs. He was only taken to the hospital after his grandmother noticed his injuries. She was also interviewed by the sheriff's department.
"…and I said, 'Ashlee. What's – what happened to Myls?' You know, and so I looked at his ear – I think I looked right here and it was swollen (Points to a spot on her face). And so I looked…I said 'My God Ashlee, what happened?" Faith Bennett said.
The child's grandmother described family efforts to get Ashlee help.
"What kind of help does she need?" the police officer asked.
"She needs mental help," Bennett said.
By the summer of 2011, with the abuse charges dropped, Ashlee and Myls had moved back to New York City. And ACS later removed the child over a neglect allegation, and the boy's father, Okee Wade, was given sole custody.
Earlier this month, Wade's alleged girlfriend was charged with torturing the child to death.
Tony Herbert is a spokesman for the Dobson family.
"She probably punished him a little too abrupt, and that's what it is. At the end of the day that kid was still with them, and then turned around when he went into that care of an individual that his father left him with and he was killed. That's where he died, in the hands of a monster, not in the hands of his mother," Herbert said.
The medical examiner has still not determined exactly how Myls died. Kryzie King is back in court next week. She has been indicted, and we'll know then if assault charges have been upgraded to murder.
