Jurors convicted Tyrone Covington of manslaughter and aggravated child abuse after a 2020 beating that prosecutors said followed a dispute over car keys during a move.

TAMPA, Fla. — A Hillsborough County judge sentenced Tyrone Covington to 30 years in prison on March 2 after jurors found him guilty of manslaughter and aggravated child abuse in the death of Josiyah Robinson, his girlfriend’s 8-year-old son.

The sentence brought a public end to a case that began with a child abuse investigation in October 2020 and moved through a first-degree murder charge, a January 2026 trial and a lesser verdict. The case drew attention because prosecutors said the fatal beating began after Josiyah accidentally locked keys in a car while the family was moving, then turned into a prolonged assault that included repeated blows with a belt and forced exercises.

By the time Covington stood for sentencing, the legal path behind him was long and severe. Investigators said Josiyah’s mother called 911 on Oct. 22, 2020, after the boy was struggling to breathe and became unresponsive. He was taken first to Brandon Hospital and then airlifted to Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital, where he died the next day. Doctors documented contusions, welts, scarring and small lacerations on his lower back and rear area, and an autopsy later found that blunt force trauma caused his death. Authorities arrested Covington on Feb. 1, 2021, and prosecutors eventually took the case to trial as a first-degree murder case. But on Jan. 29, 2026, jurors convicted him of manslaughter and aggravated child abuse instead.

The sentencing hearing focused on both punishment and memory. Hillsborough Circuit Judge Lyann Goudie denied Covington’s request for a new trial before imposing 15 years for manslaughter and 30 years for aggravated child abuse, to run at the same time. The practical result was a 30-year prison term. In court, the victim’s family described lasting damage that extended well beyond the night of the beating. Josiyah’s brother, now 19, spoke about watching the assault and being unable to stop it. His account centered less on the legal language of the case than on the image he said he still carries with him. The boy’s mother also addressed the court. Goudie, speaking directly to Covington, rejected any attempt to shift blame and told him the responsibility for the child’s death was his.

Prosecutors built the case around a specific trigger and a specific pattern. Reporting from the courtroom said the family was moving to a new home and making several trips with their belongings when the mother’s keys were locked inside her car late that evening. She blamed Josiyah and told Covington to discipline him. After a locksmith opened the vehicle, prosecutors said, Covington used a belt to whip the child more than 100 times. They also said he forced the boy to do military-style exercises, including pushups, sit-ups and jumping jacks. That detail became central to the story because Covington is a U.S. Army veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the state argued the punishment crossed far beyond discipline into sustained violence. Sheriff Chad Chronister said at the time of the arrest that the beating was not merely punishment and ultimately led to the child’s death.

Not every issue in the case ended with the verdict, and some of the sharpest disputes turned on who caused what injuries. Covington had been accused of first-degree murder, a charge that carried the possibility of life in prison if he had been convicted as charged. He denied being responsible for the fatal injuries and, according to later courtroom reporting, tried to point investigators and jurors toward Josiyah’s then-14-year-old brother. The defense position did not persuade the jury, and it did not persuade Goudie. Still, the verdict showed jurors stopped short of first-degree murder and instead convicted on manslaughter. That split between the original charge and the final verdict became one of the key legal facts in the case, because it shaped the sentencing range and the way both sides argued about intent, punishment and accountability.

By the close of the hearing, the courtroom’s focus had narrowed to where the case now stands. Covington remains convicted of manslaughter and aggravated child abuse, and the sentence leaves him facing three decades in prison unless an appeal changes the outcome. The death of Josiyah Robinson, first investigated in 2020, now sits in the record as a homicide tied to blunt force trauma after a beating inside a family dispute.

Author note: Last updated March 30, 2026.