Gunner Jones pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and child endangerment after originally facing a first-degree murder charge.

WEBSTER CITY, Iowa — An Iowa man originally charged with first-degree murder in the death of a 10-month-old boy has been sentenced to 15 years in prison after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter and child endangerment, resolving a case that began with an emergency call more than three years earlier.

Gunner Jones, 28, was sentenced Sept. 25 in Hamilton County to 10 years for manslaughter and five years for child endangerment, with Judge Bethanie Currie ordering the terms to be served consecutively. He was also ordered to pay $150,000 in restitution to the child’s estate. The sentence closed the criminal case without a trial and marked a significant change from the first-degree murder charge filed against Jones in November 2024. That charge carried substantially different allegations about his state of mind than the offense to which he ultimately pleaded guilty.

The case traces back to the early morning of April 16, 2023, when Webster City police officers and emergency personnel were dispatched at about 1:45 a.m. to a residence after the child’s mother called 911 about her unresponsive son. According to the criminal complaint and later state accounts of the investigation, the 10-month-old was taken first to Van Diest Medical Center. Medical personnel examining him observed bruising that authorities described as unusual and consistent with inflicted child abuse. The boy was later transferred to Blank Children’s Hospital in Des Moines, where he died later that morning.

The child’s name has not been publicly released in full. Court filings identified him by the initials H.A. Authorities also did not publicly identify his mother by name in the reports reviewed for this story. The Iowa Department of Public Safety said medical examinations revealed injuries consistent with child abuse and that the death was ultimately classified as a homicide. An autopsy performed through the Iowa Office of the State Medical Examiner determined that the cause of death was multiple blunt-force injuries to the infant’s head. Those medical findings became central to the investigation that followed the child’s death.

Investigators focused on the people who were inside the Webster City residence before the child became unresponsive. According to the criminal complaint, Jones and the boy’s mother were the other people in the home during the relevant period. Both told investigators that the child did not appear to have a medical problem when his mother went to sleep. Authorities said Jones remained awake in the residence with the infant. Investigators concluded from that timeline that Jones was the only person alone with the boy before the injuries were inflicted. The Department of Public Safety later said evidence led investigators to believe Jones had access to the child and caused the fatal injuries.

That conclusion did not immediately lead to a criminal charge. The infant died in April 2023, while the first-degree murder charge was not announced until Nov. 6, 2024. The Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation and the Webster City Police Department conducted the joint investigation. When state authorities announced Jones’ arrest, they said the investigation and medical examinations had led them to classify the death as a homicide. Jones, who was 26 when the charge was filed, was accused at that stage of deliberately and with premeditation causing the child’s death. Those were allegations contained in the original case, not findings reached by a jury.

Jones pleaded not guilty to the murder charge in December 2024, and the case moved toward a jury trial. Court scheduling changed several times as the prosecution remained pending. A trial was at one point set for September 2025, and later proceedings pushed the case further into 2026. Reports from the period show that Jones remained in custody while the murder case was unresolved. No jury ultimately heard evidence about whether prosecutors could prove the original first-degree murder allegation beyond a reasonable doubt. Instead, the case ended through guilty pleas to different offenses carrying different legal elements and penalties.

The available reporting differs on the precise timing of those pleas. Law&Crime reported from Hamilton County court records that Jones pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and child endangerment on the day he was sentenced. The Des Moines Register, reporting after the sentencing, said Jones had pleaded to the lesser charges in June. Because the sources conflict on that procedural date, the established point is that Jones had entered guilty pleas to both offenses before the court imposed sentence Sept. 25. The original first-degree murder allegation did not result in a murder conviction.

That distinction matters because Iowa law defines involuntary manslaughter differently from murder. State law provides that one form of felony involuntary manslaughter applies when a person unintentionally causes another person’s death while committing a public offense other than a forcible felony or escape. The statute also expressly recognizes involuntary manslaughter as an offense that can be included under an indictment for murder. Jones’ conviction therefore reflects a different criminal offense from the premeditated killing alleged when prosecutors first charged him. The publicly available reports reviewed for this story do not provide a full transcript of the plea hearing or a detailed explanation of the negotiated factual basis for the agreement.

The child-endangerment conviction added a separate five-year prison term. Iowa’s child-endangerment statute covers people with custody or control of a child, as well as certain household members, and criminalizes several forms of conduct that place a child at substantial risk or cause injury. The sentencing report from the Des Moines Register said Currie imposed five years on that count and 10 years on the manslaughter count. By ordering the sentences to run consecutively rather than at the same time, the judge produced the total 15-year prison term reported by multiple sources after the hearing.

The $150,000 restitution order is also tied to Iowa law. State law requires additional restitution of at least $150,000 in felony cases in which the offender’s acts caused another person’s death, payable to the victim’s estate or heirs as provided by statute. The Register reported that the amount imposed in Jones’ case was required by Iowa law. Restitution is separate from the prison sentence and does not change the 15-year term imposed by the court. Defense attorney Alessandra Marcucci declined to comment to the Register following the sentencing, and the available reports do not quote a statement from Jones or the child’s family at the hearing.

The resolution leaves a public record with two distinct stages. The first was an investigation that began when emergency responders encountered an unresponsive infant and medical workers observed injuries that prompted concerns about abuse. The second was a criminal prosecution that began with the state’s most serious homicide charge but ended with guilty pleas to manslaughter and child endangerment. Because the case concluded through pleas rather than a trial, the public record cited by news organizations does not include the type of witness testimony, cross-examination and jury findings that a trial would have produced. The court instead sentenced Jones on the offenses to which he admitted guilt.

Three years after the child’s death, Jones faced sentencing. The available record establishes that the infant died from head injuries classified as homicide, that investigators concluded Jones had been alone with him before the injuries occurred, and that Jones ultimately pleaded guilty to two felonies connected with the death. It does not establish through a murder verdict the premeditation alleged in the original charge. Jones is now subject to the 15-year sentence and the restitution order imposed in Hamilton County.

Author note: Last updated Nov. 9, 2026.