Judge William Glover said the boy’s fatal living conditions came from a series of choices, not a single mistake.

SPOTSYLVANIA COUNTY, Va. — A 25-year-old Virginia man was sentenced to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty in the death of his 2-year-old son, who was found with cocaine in his system after collapsing in a motel room in December 2023.

Cinceir Croxton’s sentence closes the main criminal case against the father in a death that investigators tied to drug exposure, neglect and untreated illness. Prosecutors said the child, Cinceir “CJ” Croxton Jr., was living in dangerous conditions at an Econo Lodge in Spotsylvania County. By the time the case reached sentencing, the boy’s mother had also been convicted and sent to prison, leaving the court to weigh how Croxton’s decisions shaped the child’s final months and final day.

The sentencing followed Croxton’s guilty plea last fall to second-degree murder, child abuse and drug charges. CJ died Dec. 7, 2023, after adults in the motel room realized he was unresponsive and called 911. He was taken to a hospital, where doctors found cocaine in his system and contacted law enforcement. The case moved slowly from there, with arrests coming months later and plea negotiations continuing into 2025. At sentencing, Croxton told the court he loved his son “dearly,” but Judge William Glover rejected any effort to frame the death as a sudden tragedy. “It was a series of choices you made,” the judge said, according to local reporting from the hearing.

Investigators testified that the motel room held clear signs of danger beyond the child’s medical crisis. Deputies found cocaine residue on a PlayStation, drugs in an unlocked safe and cash that authorities said totaled about $4,000. Reporting from the case also said officers recovered about 70 grams of cocaine. Witnesses described unsecured firearms in the room, and one account from the sentencing said there were three guns. Authorities also found snakes being kept in a Pack ’n Play portable crib. CJ tested positive for salmonella, which can be associated with reptiles, and prosecutors said his parents refused treatment for that infection when hospital staff tried to provide it. Those details gave the court a picture of a room where drugs, weapons, animals and a small child were all mixed together.

The case also turned on what happened before the emergency call. CJ had sickle cell disease, a condition that required continuing medical care, yet reporting on the case said he was not receiving the needed treatment every two months. Child Protective Services had opened an investigation when he was about 6 months old after a complaint that Croxton would leave him alone in a car seat with loud music playing when the child cried. But the family moved, and the agency was unable to keep track of them. The case was marked incomplete. That background helped prosecutors argue that the child’s death was not just about one day in a motel room. It was about a longer pattern of instability, missed care and contact with systems that failed to reach him in time.

The plea agreement narrowed the case before sentencing. Croxton had originally faced second-degree murder, child abuse, possession of drugs with intent to sell, possession of a firearm while under the influence of drugs and child endangerment. After he accepted the plea deal in October 2025, the firearm and child endangerment charges were dropped, and the agreement capped his sentence at 20 years. That meant the judge’s ruling Monday imposed the maximum allowed under the deal. CJ’s mother, Kahleighya Coleman, pleaded guilty earlier and was sentenced to 15 years in prison after admitting to second-degree murder and child abuse charges. Together, the two sentencings resolved the criminal cases against the boy’s parents, though the broader questions raised by the case remain matters of public concern rather than active court proceedings.

The hearing centered less on legal argument than on responsibility. Courtroom accounts said sheriff’s office witnesses described what they saw in the room and how the evidence fit the prosecution’s case. Glover’s remarks were among the sharpest moments. He said CJ’s living situation “inevitably” killed him, a conclusion that pushed back on any suggestion that love alone could offset the conditions the child lived in. The image at the center of the case remained stark: a toddler in a motel room with drugs nearby, reptiles in a Pack ’n Play and serious medical needs going unmet. By the end of the hearing, the sentence reflected the judge’s view that the danger around CJ had been built over time, not stumbled into by accident.

The case now stands with both parents sentenced, Croxton to 20 years and Coleman to 15, after CJ’s Dec. 7, 2023 death. The next milestone is administrative rather than courtroom-based: prison intake and the formal closing of any remaining post-sentencing filings.

Author note: Last updated April 15, 2026.