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Written by: A. Smith
Published December 10, 2025 @ 3:29 PM ET
SUMTER COUNTY, Ga. – A former Georgia beauty pageant winner has been sentenced to life in prison for killing her boyfriend’s 18-month-old son, a case prosecutors say was fueled by resentment and marked by shifting explanations and troubling messages.
Trinity Poague, who was a reigning pageant titleholder in Donalsonville at the time of her arrest in January 2024, must serve 30 years before she becomes eligible for parole.
Jurors were presented with several conflicting accounts from Poague about how the toddler, referred to in court as J.D., whose birth name was Romeo, suffered fatal injuries on Jan. 13, 2024. Prosecutors said Poague’s boyfriend left his son alone with her for roughly half an hour while he went to Walmart for drinks and pizza. As he returned, Poague called him twice.
When questioned, Poague alternated between claims that the child had fallen off a bed or a chair. Investigators and medical experts testified those explanations were impossible. The medical examiner determined the child’s massive brain bleeding and skull fracture were caused by blunt force trauma, injuries far too severe and too rapidly fatal to match Poague’s stories.
Photos of the toddler taken shortly before his death showed he appeared healthy, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors told jurors that Poague’s own text messages offered insight into her mindset. In messages to her roommate, she wrote of the child, “He hates me, and I hate him.” Prosecutors argued Poague resented the boy and, wanting a baby of her own, lashed out in fatal violence. Poague did not confess during the trial.
The case began the following day, Jan. 14, when the Georgia Southwestern State University Police Department asked the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to look into the toddler’s death. The boy had been brought unresponsive to Phoebe Sumter Hospital in Americus, where he died despite efforts to save him.
After interviews and a review of the evidence, the GBI arrested Poague on charges of aggravated battery, felony murder, and first-degree cruelty to children. She was booked into the Sumter County Jail without bond.