NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE — U.S. Marshal’s Task Force officers in Nashville and Marshall County, Mississippi, Tuesday night arrested two persons for the January 2015 homicide of a one-year-old boy.
The mother of victim Hayden Messiah Eldridge, Miranda Alexis Hunt, 26, of Rio Vista Drive, has been indicted by the Davidson County Grand Jury on charges of 1st degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated child neglect and aggravated child endangerment. She was taken into custody in a parking lot at Gallatin Pike & Hart Lane. Hunt’s former boyfriend, Wayne D. Jones, 27, is indicted on charges of 1st degree murder, aggravated child abuse and aggravated child neglect. He is jailed in Mississippi pending his extradition to Nashville.
Hayden Eldridge was unresponsive when he arrived at Vanderbilt University Medical Center by ambulance on January 21, 2015. Officers were told that he had been left in the care of Jones, who claimed that the child had an allergic reaction to shrimp. However, doctors at Vanderbilt discovered brain injury and retinal hemorrhaging, which the medical examiner would later determine was caused by blunt force trauma.
Youth Services Detective Sarah Bruner led the investigation into Hayden’s murder, which led to a finding of a pattern of abuse. The results of Detective Bruner’s investigation were sent to the District Attorney’s Office last fall for review and prosecution.
