Man Sentenced for Killing Baby While Mother Attended School

A North Carolina man who killed his infant daughter has been told where he will be spending the next several decades of his life.

Corbin Lee Nunez, 25, has been sentenced to up to 38 years in prison after pleading guilty to second-degree murder and felony child abuse, according to 43rd Prosecutorial District Attorney Ashley Hornsby Welch. The injuries that caused Lively Crue Colindres-Nunez’s death occurred in Graham County, which is in the state’s 43rd Prosecutorial District.

On Feb. 11, 2022, the mother of Lively, who was not quite 8 months old, left the home she shared with Corbin Lee Nunez in Robbinsville to attend classes at Haywood Community College, about 70 miles away. That night, she received a startling call.

At about 10:15 p.m., the now-condemned man called her, “saying that the child had gone limp,” the district attorney said. The mother reportedly replied by telling him to call 911, and the baby was subsequently taken to East Tennessee Children’s Hospital in Knoxville, Tennessee. Robbinsville is in western North Carolina, close to the Tennessee border.

Lively died at the hospital on Feb. 12, 2022.

An autopsy was done on the victim’s body, and it revealed she died of blunt force injuries, authorities said. Court records show Corbin Lee Nunez was arrested — and a judge ordered him held under no bond on Feb. 21, 2022.

His case lingered for more than three years, until he pleaded guilty on Sept. 18.