Minnesota dad charged with murder after son suffocated under weighted blanket while he chatted online

Thursday, April 9, 2026 -A Minnesota dad has been arrested and charged in the d£ath of his infant son after allegedly leaving the sleeping child under a weighted blanket for hours. 

Omni Maxx Morningstar, 26, was arrested Monday, April 6, after his 10-month-old son, Remington, suffocated while he was in another room chatting with friends online inside their Mankato home in October 2025, according to Mankato police and court documents obtained by the Minnesota Star Tribune. 

Police said the dad put the baby down for a nap and didn’t check on him for nearly five hours. 

Morningstar allegedly told cops he was wearing headphones in a separate bedroom and chatting away on Discord while his son’s temperature rose to a staggering 104.7 degrees before he d!ed, court papers said. 

“I’m thinking in my head, like five hours, huh,” he told cops of the fatal incident. 

“I really do wish I would have checked on him.” 

Morningstar said he put his son down for a nap at 11 a.m. on Oct. 1, 2025 and alerted police after finding him unresponsive and overheated under the weighted blanket around 3:55 p.m., the complaint said. 

First responders attempted life-saving efforts, but the child was declared de@d at a local hospital. 

The careless father allegedly told authorities the infant had a history of fevers and colic that led to multiple hospital visits, explaining he started using the heavy blanket months earlier to keep the boy from crying and moving his legs. 

Police said the victim’s bed was covered with several weighted blankets, weighing just under 20 pounds.  

The child’s devastated mother reported her husband had previously left their child alone, fully covered with a king-sized blanket, about a month earlier – after admitting he had forgotten about the baby while playing video games, according to the complaint, the outlet reported. 

A medical examiner determined the boy likely di£d from asphyxia caused by compression from the weighted blanket, the outlet reported. 

Morningstar was charged with second-degree manslaughter. 

He is being held in the Blue Earth County Jail and is due back in court on April 16.