‘I killed my daughter for a game?’: Father arrested after infant drowns while he was gaming, deputies say
By Dacia Johnson
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ST. CLOUD, Florida (WESH) — A Central Florida dad has been arrested in the 2024 drowning death of his infant daughter, an arrest warrant from the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office says.
Joshua Ruiz-Martinez, 32, is facing aggravated manslaughter charges after deputies say he left the infant in a bathtub while he played video games.
The girl was found face-down and unresponsive in the bathtub.
It happened on April 21, 2024, according to the arrest warrant.
Ruiz-Martinez, the child’s primary caregiver, told first responders he had put the infant in the tub with water up to her stomach while he went to get a bottle because she was fussy.
But investigators were able to access the computer game Ruiz-Martinez had been playing that day, and it showed he was actively playing the game while the infant was in the tub.
The sheriff’s office said the timestamps on the game conflicted with what Ruiz-Martinez told them happened.
When confronted with evidence he had been playing the game at the time of the incident, Ruiz-Martinez got emotional and responded, “I killed my daughter for a game? Please tell me I did not kill my daughter for a game,” the arrest warrant says.
It’s unclear why the arrest happened nearly a year after the drowning.
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