Five-month-old Benjamin hadn't been fed in four days. His diaper hadn't been changed

in five. The last time he was given a bath had been more than a week prior. When officers

responded to a 9-1-1 call about a baby who was not breathing, they arrived within five

minutes, but it was too late to save him. This is Monsters.

He was 254 pm on February 12, 2008, when a 9-1-1 call was made in Central Illinois.

The caller was distressed, making it clear that they needed urgent help for a baby boy who

had stopped breathing. Emergency responders knew that the well-being of a child was at

stake, so the first car was sent immediately to the scene on Proctor Street in Peoria County.

The paramedics arrived at 259. After both the fire department and paramedics arrived on

scene, police officers from the local station were also dispatched because one of the paramedics

had let the station know that they believed it might have been a case of shaken baby

syndrome. Immediately after walking through the door, one thing was painfully obvious to

the officers. The house had a terrible, putrid smell, made even worse by the fact that

the inside of the house was kept at a very warm 78 degrees Fahrenheit or 25 degrees Celsius.

The officers walked inside to find James Sargent, the father of the baby, wrapped in a blanket

on the living room couch. He was curled up in the fetal position, hugging his knees

to his chest and he was sobbing. The officers moved past James and toward one of the bedrooms

struggling to walk because of the random debris in rubbish that covered the floor. A medic

who had been on the scene for less than 20 minutes warned the officers that the baby

was inside the room, but he was already dead. They had already notified a police sergeant

over the phone, informing them that the child had been dead for some time. When the officers

entered the baby's bedroom, it became clear why no efforts were being taken to revive

...