Former Georgia beauty queen Trinity Madison Poague bawled her eyes out in court as she faced sentencing for the murder of her ex-boyfriend’s toddler son.
Poague, 20, was found guilty of felony murder, aggravated battery and child cruelty in Sumter County Superior Court in Georgia on Friday for the January 2024 murder of 18-month-old Romeo “Jaxton Dru” Angeles, WALB reported.
Poague was found not guilty on malice murder.
She broke down in tears as the judge handed down a life sentence and an additional 20 concurrent years — just under an hour after the jury returned its guilty verdict.
“I don’t do a lot of speaking when I am passing the sentence. I have heard the case, and I’ve considered the tragedy,” W. James Sizemore, Jr. said as a distressed Poague stared blankly.
“The bottom line is you’re going to receive a sentence of life in prison.”
Poague, a sophomore at Georgia Southwestern State University at the time, murdered 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.
Poague was charged with the murder a week after the toddler’s death.
During her short trial, prosecutors argued that she killed the 18-month-old 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.”
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?”
Poague first told investigators the toddler was eating chips moments before he became unresponsive, a claim the medical examiner refuted after determining he hadn’t eaten at all.
The exam, however, found he had suffered blunt-force trauma to his head and torso so severe his brain was left “useless.”
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.”
Poague earned the 2023 Miss Donalsonville title and later participated in the National Peanut Festival beauty pageant, where she did not place, the Early County News reported.
She was stripped of her titles after being arrested for the tot’s murder.
