By Robert Tomlinson
News Director
CENTREVILLE — Paige Nichole Bohne of Sturgis was sentenced in St. Joseph County 45th Circuit Court Thursday in the death of her 2-year-old child.
The 22-year-old was sentenced by Circuit Court Judge Paul Stutesman to 225 months to 45 years in prison on one count of first-degree child abuse, and to four years and nine months to 10 years in prison on one count of assault with intent to do bodily harm. The sentences will run concurrent with each other, and she will be credited for 406 days of time served so far.
Thursday’s sentence comes after Bohne pled no contest in July to the child abuse and assault charges as part of a plea deal that saw her also plead not guilty to charges of murder and conspiracy to commit child abuse, charges that were subsequently dropped as part of the agreement.
Bohne had been arrested back on Nov. 7, 2024 after her 2-year-old child, Octavia, was found unresponsive at a house in the Memory Lane Mobile Home Park in the 25000 block of U.S. 12 in Sturgis Township. According to the results of the autopsy report read by Stutesman during sentencing, the child’s cause of death was suffocation, and that Bohne admitted to investigators that she had pushed the child into a couch and “held her down until she stopped fighting,” with Stutesman saying the child died “because she wouldn’t take a nap.”
St. Joseph County Prosecutor Deborah Davis gave a detailed rundown of the events of the case leading up to the death during the hearing, saying the child was not given breakfast and given “a handful of melatonin gummies” that was “almost three times the amount an adult would have at peak concentration,” and said the actions Bohne took leading up to the child’s death were “unconscionable.”
“Trying to force this child back to sleep so she could text back and forth with her boyfriend, play on TikTok, and make herself something to eat is unconscionable. To not check on this child is such a lapse in judgement that it’s difficult to fathom,” Davis said. “If your child isn’t awake and stirring by noon, I would think that would be an issue.”
Davis added the prosecution believes Bohne “put the blanket over Octavia” and that she “held her down forcefully,” which caused the child to be “smothered.” The child reportedly had “a large amount” of melatonin in her system at the time of her death, as well as had some “minor respiratory issues.”
“The melatonin wouldn’t have killed her, the respiratory issues wouldn’t have killed her, but having her face shoved into a couch until she stopped moving, that would do it,” Davis said. “I don’t think Paige intended to kill her, that’s not what we’re looking at. Did she create this situation that is so dangerous? Yes, she did. She knowingly did it, and now she’s trying to rationalize it, minimize it, cover it up.”
Davis said this case was a “tough” case, but said the recommended sentence should be followed, which was the sentence handed down.
“These are tough cases, but there are times where the sentence needs to be stiff so that it sends a message to others that this will not be tolerated,” Davis said. “This 2-year-old child had nobody looking out for her, and now we are all left to deal with it.”
An impact statement was also read out by Shelby Bohne, Paige’s aunt. She said Paige did not allow Octavia to have “freedom,” and had “destroyed” both her family and the rest of the family.
“Because of what you did, children were torn from their homes, forced to live with the pain and confusion of losing everything they knew. And your own son, you left him behind,” Shelby Bohne said. “We live with grief, anger and trauma that doesn’t go away. We don’t get parole from this pain, we don’t get visits or time off from this heartbreak, this is our life now.
“I also need to say that while Paige stands before you today, it does not feel like the whole truth has been answered,” Shelby continued. “There are serious concerns that Paige may not be the only one who holds responsibility for what happened, whether between involvement, encouragement or silence, and it’s deeply painful to feel that others may walk free while our pain carries this loss forever.”
Paige Bohne did not speak during the sentencing.
Stutesman, prior to handing down the sentence, said the pre-sentence report detailing the case was one of the longest he had seen. He said he was limited in what he could say in his comments, because of a co-defendant who hasn’t come to trial yet, but he said in his mind that Paige Bohne was the one who “held the child down because she wanted to do other things.”
“She started crying, and then she did it until the child stopped moving and stopped making noise and then left her,” Stutesman said.
That co-defendant mentioned by Stutesman, Fredrick Nelson, recently had his case into his alleged role in the child’s death bound over to Circuit Court, with a status conference currently set for mid-January and a jury trial initially set for Feb. 10. Nelson faces one count of first-degree murder and one count of tampering with evidence in a criminal case, according to court records.
Robert Tomlinson can be reached at 279-7488 or robert@wilcoxnewspapers.com.
