Van Erick Custodio, 42, was charged with first-degree murder on Thursday in connection with the death of 6-week-old Lucas Birchim, the Gastonia police department said. Custodio had previously been beaten with child abuse charges, but those charges were upgraded after Birchim’s death at a local hospital on Wednesday. The baby had suffered several injuries, including a skull fracture and a broken rib. Custodio is being held on $ 500,000 bail at Gaston County Jail. On his personal website, Custodio describes himself as a “UX Consultant who wants to take on the next task” while working as an assistant professor to computer students at Belmont Abbey College. The school confirmed it was hired in 2019, but was recently placed on family leave before being suspended on Wednesday. A spokesman for the University of North Carolina-Charlotte also confirmed that Custodio had been hired on a “limited, temporary contract to teach a class this semester in an additional capacity”. “It has been placed on administrative leave and another faculty member will cover this class for the remainder of the semester,” the UNCC spokesman added. It was not immediately clear whether Custodio had retained a lawyer. The former professor and his wife have long documented their adoption journey online, setting up a GoFundMe last January and reportedly posting a video to help with their adoption efforts, the WSCO said. “We just felt that God had put this desire in our hearts,” the couple said, according to the newspaper. “We always wanted to start a family. At the end of the day, it’s a call, right, it’s also a matter of writing, right? “ Last August, the couple even got involved with BothHands, which helps “Christian adoptive families fund their adoptions by coordinating a service project that makes a widow’s home.” The organization confirmed to WCTI that they helped the Custodios raise money for the adoption. “Our team is incredibly devastated by this news,” the agency said in a statement. “We find these actions horrible and we pray for a cure for this child. “We try to place all the children in safe and beloved homes, so our hearts are broken.” Authorities say that on April 1, officers and emergency personnel responded to Custodio’s home after receiving reports of an “infant with cardiac arrest.” Birchim was eventually taken to a local hospital, where authorities were able to determine that the baby’s injuries were “consistent with the physical abuse”. According to arrest warrants for Custodio first received by the WSCO, Birchim suffered from “a skull fracture, a broken rib and multiple fractures in each leg.” The warrant also states that Custodio’s friends told police he had admitted to throwing “the child on the couch and also squeezing the child, hearing a cracking in the rib area”. The friend also told police that Custodio admitted that he “turned the child’s legs back and felt him pop on his feet” while changing the baby’s diaper. The injuries and testimony that Custodio had “admitted” that he had abused his recently adopted son prompted authorities to issue an arrest warrant for child abuse with serious bodily harm. Two days after the charges were filed, he was arrested on April 11 in York County after authorities received information that he was hiding in a house on Lake Wallis. Charges were upgraded two days later after the baby died.
