A former Georgia beauty queen killed her boyfriend’s toddler son in a jealous fit of rage because she wanted to start a family with her partner and have their own child, prosecutors alleged.
Trinity Poague, 20, appeared in Sumter County Superior Court in Georgia on Tuesday where she stands trial for the January 2024 murder of 18-month-old Romeo Angeles, WALB reported.
Poague, a sophomore at Georgia Southwestern State University at the time, is accused of murdering the young tot inside her boyfriend Julian Williams’ dorm room while he was out picking up a pizza.
She texted Williams that his son was not breathing, prompting him to rush back, find the toddler unresponsive, and drive him straight to the ER.
Romeo never regained stability and was pronounced dead despite doctors’ attempts to stabilize the baby boy for an emergency flight to a children’s hospital in Atlanta
A week after the tot’s death, Poague was charged with murder, aggravated battery, and child cruelty. She later pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Prosecutors argued that Poague killed Romeo out of resentment because she wanted a child of her own with Williams.
“She wanted to have a child or children with Julian Williams,” Prosecutor Lewis Lamb told jurors on Tuesday, according to courtroom footage from CourtTV. “But not that child.”
Lamb argued that Poague was jealous that Williams paid more attention to his son than to her and that she did not want to assume a stepmother role.
He also told jurors that Poague expressed her hatred toward the child in a text to her roommate hours before the tragedy.
“I can’t stand being around JD anymore. He hates me and I hate him,” Lamb said she allegedly wrote.
The deceased child’s birth certificate identified him as Romeo Angles, but Julian Williams gave the child’s name as Jaxton Drew at the hospital, Sumter County Coroner Matthis Wright said last year.
The prosecution further claimed that while at the hospital, Poague searched for terms like “How do you get a brain bleed?” and “How can a depressed skull fracture go unnoticed?” WALB reported.
Wright testified that Poague initially claimed the toddler had been eating chips moments before becoming unresponsive — a detail contradicted by the medical exam, which found he had not eaten anything before his death.
The exam instead found the child suffered “blunt-force trauma” to the head and torso until his brain was “useless.”
Wright said that Poague later changed her story and told investigators he had fallen off the bed.
Emergency room physician Dr. Michael Busman told the court that Poague’s account was inconsistent with Romeo’s injuries, explaining that head swelling and fluid from the toddler’s nose pointed to “a direct blow.”
If convicted on all counts, Poague faces life without parole or the death penalty.
Poague earned the 2023 Miss Donalsonville title and later participated in the National Peanut Festival beauty pageant, where she did not place. She has since been stripped of her titles, the Early County News reported.
Shortly after her arrest, Poague was released on a $75,000 bond — a decision that outraged Williams, WALB reported.
“This feels like a slap in the face to me and my family,” Williams said. “All we want is justice for my son. Letting her out and being free is not right. She took an innocent 1-year-old’s life.”
