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Left inset: Larena Jackson (Cass County Sheriff’s Office). Right inset: Larena Jackson’s son, Aaryan (Valley News Live). Background: The area around White Stone Loop in rural Cass Lake, Minn., where Larena Jackson killed Aaryan (Google Maps).
A mother in Minnesota is heading to prison for murdering her 23-month-old son by slamming his head repeatedly into a bedroom wall and then lying to police about what happened, claiming he was run over by his father — who happened to have his car in the shop at the time.
“She took my baby’s life,” said Robert Ortez, father of Aaryan, who was killed by his mom Larena Jackson in August 2023. “I still don’t know, to this day, what really happened because she isn’t saying anything,” Ortez told Valley News Live. “I’m still trying to figure out why she did it. I don’t know why[.]”
Jackson, 31, was sentenced Monday to nearly 20 years in prison after she pleaded guilty in February to second-degree murder for her son’s death. She claimed in her written plea petition that she was intoxicated the day she fatally injured Aaryan by way of blunt force trauma.
“I was so under the influence of drugs, I did not know what was doing at the time of the crime and am entering this plea on Norgaard basis,” Jackson said, according to Valley News Live. A Norgaard plea allows Minnesota defendants to admit to a crime and to the strength of the prosecution’s case while also admitting that they cannot remember specific facts due to intoxication or other memory loss.
On the day Aaryan was fatally injured, the Cass County Sheriff’s Office got a report of a child who had been run over by a car. Jackson had called police and claimed it was Ortez who murdered the boy, not knowing that his car was being worked on.
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“I had a car in the shop that I supposedly ran over Aaryan with, but I had a different car I was driving,” Ortez told Valley News Live.
A search of Jackson’s home turned up large amounts of blood scattered throughout her Cass Lake residence and investigators also reported finding large holes in the wall consistent with the shape of a toddler’s head. Aaryan died in the hospital five days later.
In addition to murder, Jackson was also charged with first-degree assault, malicious punishment of a child and fleeing a peace officer. She was sentenced to serve at least 17 1/2 years with credit for 581 days served.
“She deserves life in prison,” Ortez concluded.
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