Atascadero, CA -- A 27-year-old Atascadero man pleaded no contest yesterday to second-degree murder for the death of his 3-month-old boy in 2009. Kelly Dewayne Lavinge faces a sentence of 15 years to life in prison. Lavinge told police that the newborn, Isaiah Lavinge, a twin, had vomited up food and that he may have been shaking him a little too much.

Initially, a doctor at Twin Cities Community Hospital in Templeton found no external signs of abuse on the boy’s body. But after the child was transferred to a children’s hospital in Madera, medical personnel there found brain hemorrhage and retinal hemorrhaging, determining the infant was a victim of shaken baby syndrome. Lavinge is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 6.