The real-life nightmare started in April 2010 when Argentine Township Police responded to the home of 26-year-old Corrine Baker and found a horrifying sight. 

Police say her boyfriend, then 24-year-old Brandon Hayes, beat her 4-year-old son Dominick Calhoun to death over the course of days.  The brutality allegedly started after the child wet his pants on a sofa at their Argentine Township apartment.

The boy laid almost lifeless, covered in bruises from his head to his toes.  Rescue crews would rush him to the hospital, but doctors would find the damage to his brain, from repeated trauma, just too severe to save him. 

Hayes faces numerous charges, including first-degree murder and torture charges.  Prosecutors charged Baker with second-degree murder and child abuse, saying she didn’t do enough to protect her son from Hayes. 

Child Protective Services took Dominick’s 8-year-old brother Tyler Baker, a child who told police he witnessed the abuse that killed his sibling, into custody. He’s been there ever since.

From the perspective of Tyler’s grandparents, it is an atrocity.

“Does he know we haven’t abandoned him? Does he know we want him?” asks Julie Baker, Tyler’s grandmother.

She says she and her family have written him letters telling him they love him, but they never get a response.  They fear the letters aren’t reaching him.

“We just want him to know that we love him,” says Martin Baker, Tyler’s grandfather.

The couple says they have gone to numerous hearings, but a judge has decided not to take away their daughter Corrine Baker’s parental rights at this time. 

“She deserves due process,” says Baker’s criminal defense attorney Fred Meiers.

He points out she has not been convicted of child abuse or murder. 

However, her parents point out that she is in prison serving a minimum 4-year, 7-month sentence for dealing drugs. The sentence was handed down in August.  It stems from the fact she was on parole for the crime when Dominick died, and violated parole by living with a felon in a home with drugs.

“He will be a teenager before she gets out,” says Julie Baker. “Tyler should be home with us.”

The Bakers say fighting Corrine for custody is nothing new. They say they petitioned for custody of both Tyler and Dominick years ago, because Corrine struggled with drugs and was an unreliable mother. She often left the boys with them for long periods of time and they wanted to provide a permanent home. The court did not allow them to do that then. 

They say the courts failed Dominick at that time, and are failing Tyler now. 

Dominick Calhoun’s paternal grandfather Rick Calhoun says he witnessed the home the Bakers provided for Dominick and Tyler. He says it is a miscarriage of justice that they aren’t allowed to bring the boy home. 

“This is where he was happy,” says Calhoun.  “This is where he smiled.”

From the family’s research they say Corrine Baker could sign her rights over to them, but she refuses to so far. They have started a letter writing campaign aimed at convincing her to do so. 

They are asking people to write Baker and ask her to sign over her parental rights to her parents, Martin and Julie Baker.