“We don’t have a son no more.” Police claim that after killing her 5-year-old kid and calling the boy’s father to inform him of the crime, Alaskan mother Cedar Sarten left these gruesome comments in a voicemail.
“Please don’t freak out,” Sarten stated. “We don’t have a son no more.”
Fairbanks Police Department officials told Law&Crime on Tuesday that Sarten allegedly attacked her child’s lifeless body with a knife after beating him to death on October 13 with a 20-pound “kettle ball”-style weight.
“It was a pretty horrific scene,” Public Information Officer Teal Soden stated. “The initial responding officer found the child dead on the bed and observed injuries that were consistent with him being cut or stabbed.”
After the alleged attack on her son, Sarten, 43, tried to end her life by cutting her head, neck, and forearms. She then called Gagner and the police the next day, at around 10 a.m. on October 14, to report what had happened, according to her complaint.
“[Sarten] called 911 reporting someone had ‘crashed’ her son’s brain with a 20-pound weight,” according to the document. “The Defendant indicated her son was definitely dead. In response to the dispatcher’s questions about what had happened, the Defendant stated she did not know. She stated the last time she had seen her son alive was when he was falling asleep in her arms at approximately 1:00 or 2:00 a.m.”
Sarten was taken to a nearby medical facility by first responders. She was charged on Monday and remains in the hospital. Sarten is a career criminal with over 20 offenses on her record, including felony theft, assault, criminal mischief, and reckless endangerment against her kid.
“She has been hospitalized since the incident,” Soden stated “We’re hoping this week that she’ll be actually be arrested.”
Sarten’s complaint states that she left voicemails for Gagner, including one from her hospital bed, when he did not respond.
In one purported voicemail, she stated, “I might die over here, I’m not playing.”
In another, Sarten begged, “I don’t know if I can make it to the door, come over please. Robert, I’m not playing. I couldn’t save our son. They did this to us.”
Sarten allegedly called Gagner and stated, “I know you’re mad as hell at me because he died on my watch,” according to the hospital’s voicemail. “I called you, okay. I called you. I knew something was wrong. I’m not blaming you. I’m just saying.”
Gagner told detectives that Sarten had been “acting differently” in the days preceding their son’s death and that her behavior was “inconsistent with her normal demeanor,” according to the complaint filed by Fairbanks police. According to the complaint, he and Sarten share custody, and Sarten took turns seeing the boy.
According to court documents, Sarten has a history of violence, including a conviction for reckless endangerment against her son in 2022. According to her lawsuit, she “grabbed onto his head and twisted it” when he was approximately 16 months old.
The boy’s autopsy determined that severe blunt force injuries to his head and brain was the cause of death.
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There were also reports of “multiple injuries consistent with a sharp object, including a stab wound to his right chest,” but these were related to Sarten’s subsequent attack.
“No bleeding was observed to be inside the chest cavity of the stab wound, suggesting the injury occurred postmortem,” according to the complaint.
“This is definitely a rare type of case for us,” she stated. “It is much more horrific than what our officer usually deal with. Of course, responding to a dead child in any circumstance is very difficult and tragic, but in a case where they’ve been murdered like this, its even more so.”
Police say Sarten is charged with first-degree murder. A court date has not yet been assigned to her.
