Photo by voteprime.

A D.C. woman was arrested today and charged with murdering her three-year-old son.

Frances Lyles, a 25-year-old woman from Southeast D.C., was arrested by the Capital Area Regional Fugitive Task Force today and charged her with first degree felony murder, according to the Metropolitan Police Department. Xavier Lyles died of multiple blunt force injuries in a home on the 2500 block of Pomeroy Road SE in late June. Frances Lyles attended a candlelight memorial for her son a few days after his death.

From a previous Washington Post report:

The boy’s mother told police that her son had no health problems and that she had put him in his sister’s bed about 5:30 p.m. on Monday, according to the search warrant. That document says the mother reported that she checked on Xavier at 8 that night and that he “opened his eyes and went back to sleep.”

About 10 a.m. Wednesday, police said in the warrant application, Xavier’s 9-year-old sister found that her brother had vomited and was unresponsive. Police said the mother called her cousin, then 911. Paramedics pronounced Xavier dead at the scene and the body was taken to the medical examiner’s office for an autopsy.

Police said they interviewed family members and other witnesses and concluded that the child had been beaten. Police would not comment further. Relatives, including Xavier’s mother, could not be reached for comment over the past two days.