Couple Charged In Tacoma Boy's Beating Death

TACOMA - A 21-year-old Tacoma woman and her 22-year-old live-in boyfriend were charged with homicide by abuse yesterday in the beating death of the woman's young son.

Therese Ann Beem and Duane Lee Summers pleaded not guilty to the charges, which, with no prior felony offenses, carry a standard sentencing range of 20 to more than 26 years.

Judge Nile Aubrey of Pierce County Superior Court set bail at $250,000 for each, as prosecutors had recommended.

Maxwell Beem, who would have turned 2 on Saturday, was pronounced dead Sunday at Madigan Army Medical Center.

The county medical-examiner's office classified the death as a homicide after it was determined the boy had died of "multiple blunt trauma" and had suffered a perforated intestine several days before death. The boy also had suffered three fractured ribs, one described as fresh.

Eighty-five bruises in various states of healing were found on Maxwell's body, according to police.

The boy's death was the third beating death of a child in Pierce County this year, according to Jane Weber, chief investigator for the medical-examiner's office. There was one such death last year, she said.

Prosecutors allege Beem and Summers, an Army specialist at Fort Lewis, beat Maxwell from Nov. 15 to Sunday, causing the boy's death.

According to the charges, Summers said Maxwell had been sick for two days with asthma and had been given Tylenol and asthma medication.

He said the boy had been thirsty and had complained that his stomach hurt. When he was given Pepto-Bismol, he vomited, according to Summers. He said that the boy had difficulty breathing and talking and that he gave him CPR. Summers said he called medical aid when he was unable to get vital signs from the boy.

The charges state that when asked about Maxwell's injuries, Summers said the boy had fallen down stairs. He also said he had disciplined the boy by spanking him.

According to the charges, Beem said that the boy bruised easily and that some of the bruises were caused by a fall down the stairs. She said she occasionally spanked him, but Summers usually administered punishment to the boy. She stated she knew the boy was ill but delayed summoning aid because of the child's bruises.

The charges also say detectives recovered a letter from the couple's apartment written by Summers, discussing his need to control his temper.

Summers' father, Onice Summers, yesterday said his son met Beem in Germany when he had been stationed there. The couple returned to the area in the beginning of the summer, he said.

Neither Beem nor Duane Summers have a criminal record, and Child Protective Services had had no contact with the couple, authorities said.

A Fort Lewis spokeswoman said Summers joined the Army in 1990 and had been stationed in Missouri, Germany and Fort Lewis. He is a light-wheel-vehicle mechanic.

Maxwell's father is in the Air Force, stationed in Texas.

Under the homicide-by-abuse law, prosecutors must prove a defendant showed extreme indifference to human life and engaged in a "pattern or practice of assault or torture."

The law was inspired in 1987 by the abuse-related death of 3-year-old Eli Creekmore of Everett.