MN mom accused in son's 2018 death now charged with murder

A Twin Cities woman has been re-charged in connection with the death of her young son, more than two years after the fact.

Tasha Tennin, a 37-year-old Brooklyn Park resident, was initially charged with second-degree manslaughter last year, but this week, a Hennepin County grand jury indicted her for first-degree murder "while committing child abuse with a past pattern of child abuse." 

Her eight-year-old son died on February 1, 2018, after being allegedly locked in a garage overnight. Tennin called police to her home after finding her son unresponsive the next morning, and responders found him not breathing, with no pulse, and feeling "ice cold" when they got there.

According to a news release from the Hennepin County Attorney's Office, police reported that "the boy appeared to have urinated in his pajamas," with a police sergeant noticing "a puddle of frozen liquid in the attached garage." When police returned to the home with a search warrant a week later, "the liquid was gone." 

Despite the efforts of the police and paramedics, the boy was pronounced dead at 8:14 that morning. 

Though medical examiners could find no "anatomical cause for the victim’s death," they did note multiple lesions and scars on his back, "which a doctor stated were indicative of physical abuse."

According to the attorney's office, Tennin told Brooklyn Park Detectives that her son had come home from school "sick, lethargic and without an appetite" the day before. 

However, staff members at his school told police that the boy had been "playing and jumping on a trampoline," the release notes.

Months later, his siblings told their foster parents that the victim "got into trouble" the night before his death, with Tennin telling him to sit outside in the garage. Tennin then locked the garage, the children reported, and their brother was left there for the night. 

He was found "unable to breathe" the next morning, according to prosecutors.

Tennis, who was arrested Friday, is due in court for her first appearance on Monday, Aug. 24.

According to the Hennepin County jail roster, she is also charged with second-degree murder in the case.