Man sentenced to life for murdering 4-year-old son

A Toronto man has been sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 16 years for the second-degree murder of his four-year-old son, Jaelin Roberto Colley, who died on October 13, 2014.

Ontario Superior Court Justice John McMahon sentenced Joel Roberto, 39, on Friday in a Toronto courtroom. Roberto has been in custody for nearly 12 years, meaning he must serve four more years before becoming eligible to apply for parole.

Jaelin was found emaciated and without vital signs at the couple's North York rental townhouse on Finch Avenue East near Leslie Street. He had blunt force injuries to his head. A post-mortem examination found he died from blunt force trauma while choking on his vomit. Severe malnutrition was also a contributing factor—he weighed 27.6 pounds, less than when he was last seen by a doctor at 20 months old.

Roberto and his partner, Ravyn Colley, were convicted twice for the killing. Initially in 2017, Roberto was convicted of second-degree murder and Colley of first-degree murder. Both were granted new trials after a successful appeal, and at their retrials, juries convicted both of second-degree murder.

Justice McMahon said he accepted that Colley inflicted the injuries and denied food to the boy, but found that Roberto did nothing to protect his son. Nearly an hour before Jaelin died, Roberto took a video of the boy who was semi-conscious at the time. When Roberto did call 911, he lied to the operator, saying Jaelin was still breathing and had fallen down the stairs two days earlier.

The judge said the boy's younger brother, who was three at the time of the murder, will be profoundly affected. "He will never have his older brother, Jaelin, to share the joys of a lifetime together. At some point, when that young person is older, he will learn his father murdered his older brother, as did his mother. A terrible tragedy he will live with for the rest of his life," McMahon said.