Newly reported warrant allegations describe what witnesses said they heard and what the accused man told investigators about the child’s final hours.

BELLE ROSE, La. — An arrest warrant has provided the fullest public account yet of the allegations surrounding the death of a 3-year-old Belle Rose girl, describing witness statements and an interview in which Bernard JR Fleander allegedly told investigators he became overwhelmed during potty training and struck the child before she became unresponsive.

The warrant details, reported Sept. 25, expand substantially on the information released after Fleander’s Aug. 13 arrest on a first-degree murder charge. The Assumption Parish Sheriff’s Office initially said deputies were sent at about 3:20 a.m. that day to Assumption Community Hospital in Napoleonville after the child was brought there unresponsive. Medical personnel attempted lifesaving measures but could not revive her. Detectives observed significant injuries across her body, searched a Highway 308 residence in Belle Rose and interviewed people who had been inside the home. An autopsy later classified the manner of death as homicide. Fleander, 26, has not been convicted, and the allegations against him remain subject to the court process.

The newly reported warrant says several people were at the residence and that witnesses described hearing Fleander strike the child during the early morning hours. According to the document, they told investigators the episode continued for a period of time while they could hear the girl crying and could hear sounds they believed came from her being struck. The witnesses also described recurring tension over potty training and alleged that Fleander had previously been verbally aggressive while disciplining the 3-year-old twins. Those accounts are allegations recorded by investigators and have not been tested at trial. Authorities have not publicly released the name of the child who died.

The warrant also gives investigators’ account of what Fleander allegedly said when questioned. According to the report, he told detectives that one of the girls had soiled a diaper and that the two children were placed on the toilet for about 10 minutes. One used the bathroom and the other did not. Fleander allegedly said the child who later died then urinated on the floor and on his foot. The warrant says he described himself as becoming “maxed out” and acknowledged striking the girl with an item of footwear. He told investigators he intended to strike her backside but believed he could have hit other areas as she moved, according to the document.

Investigators said Fleander’s account then shifted to the child moving toward the kitchen. The warrant alleges that he told detectives he pushed her in the back of the head and became alarmed when she went limp and fell forward. He reportedly said he did not know whether her head hit something as she fell. When he picked her up, the warrant says, he described her as unresponsive and attempted CPR on a couch for several minutes. Fleander allegedly told investigators he was uncertain whether he was performing CPR correctly. Someone else at the residence then drove him and the child to the hospital, according to the warrant and earlier reporting from local television station WAFB.

The medical evidence described in the warrant goes beyond the sheriff’s initial reference to “significant injuries.” The document reportedly lists fractures, internal contusions, lacerations and hematomas across a large portion of the child’s body. WAFB previously reported that medical personnel noted serious head injuries, internal injuries and internal bleeding. Because the case involves a child, the available reports use unusually stark medical findings while leaving many details of the autopsy undisclosed. The public record reviewed for this report does not identify the precise injury that a pathologist determined caused the girl’s death. The sheriff’s office has said only that the autopsy classified the manner of death as homicide.

Authorities have also used somewhat different descriptions of Fleander’s relationship to the girl. The sheriff’s initial release said he was caring for the child and other children and specifically stated that he was not her biological father. Law&Crime described him as a babysitter. The arrest warrant reportedly identified him as the girl’s father, while the sheriff’s office later told local reporter Melissa Moore that investigators do not believe he was the biological father of the girl or her twin and that he acted as their stepfather. Those distinctions do not change the central allegation that the girl was in Fleander’s care when she suffered the injuries that led to the homicide investigation, but they illustrate why authorities have been cautious about how the relationship is characterized.

The case began as a hospital investigation rather than a call from the Belle Rose home. After the girl was pronounced dead, detectives traced the events back to the Highway 308 residence and obtained a search warrant. The sheriff’s office said investigators interviewed witnesses who had been present when the incident occurred. Fleander was detained while the investigation developed, and detectives secured an arrest warrant later that Thursday. He was booked into the Assumption Parish Detention Center on a first-degree murder charge and a separate failure-to-appear count connected with a simple battery case. The sheriff’s office said at the time that it did not anticipate additional arrests, although the homicide investigation was continuing.

Louisiana law helps explain the seriousness of the murder charge without resolving whether prosecutors can prove it. State law defines first-degree murder in several ways, including a killing in which an offender has specific intent to kill or inflict great bodily harm upon a victim younger than 12. The girl in this case was 3. Prosecutors would still have to establish the elements of any criminal charge with admissible evidence, and an arrest warrant is not a finding of guilt. The warrant’s description of Fleander’s alleged statements, the witness accounts and the medical evidence could become important parts of the prosecution, but the public reports reviewed here do not indicate how Fleander or a defense attorney may challenge that evidence.

The timing of the warrant report also changes the public understanding of the case. In the days immediately after the arrest, authorities disclosed that the girl had been injured, that the injuries were associated with a potty-training episode and that an autopsy found the death to be a homicide. What was not initially public was the alleged sequence inside the residence: the bathroom episode, witnesses hearing the child, Fleander’s reported description of striking her, her collapse, attempted CPR and the drive to the hospital. Those allegations now give investigators a more detailed chronology, but important questions remain unanswered, including the full forensic findings, the statements of each witness and whether any evidence conflicts with Fleander’s account.

The child’s identity has remained out of public releases reviewed for this report, keeping the focus on the criminal investigation rather than on identifying a young victim. Authorities have disclosed that she was from Belle Rose and that a twin sister was also in the household. No allegation in the sources reviewed says the twin suffered the injuries attributed to the child who died. The sheriff’s office said it had been in contact with the district attorney’s office and the Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services as investigators worked through the circumstances surrounding the death and the presence of other children in the home.

Currently, Fleander remains jailed without bond on the first-degree murder case. No conviction has been entered, and the warrant allegations remain to be proved in court. The sheriff’s office has continued to describe the case as an investigation into the homicide of the 3-year-old girl, while the newly disclosed document supplies the most detailed public account so far of what investigators believe happened before she was taken to the Napoleonville hospital.

Author note: Last updated September 28, 2026.