The three women face 13 charges including aggravated murder, kidnapping and child endangerment

NEED TO KNOW

• A coroner revealed the cause of death of 7-year-old William Evans-Ellis, who was found duct-taped inside a closet at his home in Cincinnati’s Oakley neighborhood on Aug. 6
• Three women, including the boy’s mother, face 13 charges including aggravated murder, kidnapping and child endangerment in connection to this case
• The mother and the two other women pleaded not guilty

The cause of death has been revealed for a 7-year-old Ohio boy who was found duct-taped inside a closet in his Cincinnati home.

Hamilton County Coroner Lakshmi Sammarco revealed in a press conference on Tuesday, Aug. 11, which was shared by WXIX, that 7-year-old William Evans-Ellis died from blunt force trauma to the head.

She also said that he was found with “a number of other injuries,” including a “comminuted supracondylar fracture of the distal-humerus,” which is a severe elbow injury where the bone just above the elbow joint is broken into multiple pieces, according to the National Institute of Health.

Evans-Ellis also had “bruises that were too numerous to count” and of “various ages,” Sammarco said, adding that they appeared to have been made “over a period of time.”

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“We don’t know all the circumstances … Yes, he was bound when we found him, and as far as I know the investigation is still going on,” she said during the press conference. 

Sammarco noted that they believe that he may have been dead in the closet for “about a day.” She described the scene as “too graphic” for the media. She also said that no other children were found in the house.

PEOPLE reached out to the Hamilton County Coroner’s Office for additional comment on Saturday, Aug. 15, but did not receive an immediate response.

Officers from the Cincinnati and Norwood police departments responded to a home in the Cincinnati neighborhood of Oakley at around 1 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 6, after receiving a report of a disturbance, at which time they found the boy unresponsive, according to WCPO. He was later pronounced dead.

Kaitlin Evans, 38, Nessa Keaney, 23, and Kirby Rankin, 33, were charged in connection to the death of Evans-Ellis. Prosecutors said in Hamilton County Municipal Court on Friday, Aug. 7, that the three women lived together in the home and co-parented William, who is Evans’ son, per WLWT.

The three were charged with 13 counts, including aggravated murder, kidnapping and child endangerment, which they all pleaded not guilty to in court on Friday, Aug. 14, according to The Cincinnati Enquirer. Their bonds were kept at $1.1 million each. 

A longtime homicide detective told a judge during the trio’s first appearance in court on Aug. 7 that the boy had mental disabilities was found with “a number of injuries that would indicate physical beatings, blunt force injuries from a striking device on the face, torso, back, upper and lower extremities,” per WXIX and WCPO.

The investigator also told the judge, per WCPO, that they believed “the victim was choked underwater, held underwater for a long period of time. There was also some burn torture involved.” 

An indictment filed against the three women alleged that they communicated their plot to commit the crime through text messages on the Signal app between July 1 and Aug. 6, according to WLWT and The Cincinnati Enquirer.

Hamilton County Prosecutor Connie Pillich told the outlets that an investigation is still underway to determine whether the death penalty could be warranted.

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