A DeKalb father and registered sex offender has been charged with first-degree murder in his 5-month-old son’s death, a day after the baby was hospitalized suffering significant facial injuries while in the man’s care, authorities said.

Dominic G. Larson, 30, also is charged with aggravated battery to a child, reckless conduct and misdemeanor endangering the life of a child. If convicted of murder of a child, a Class X felony, he could face between 30 to 60 years in prison.

Larson has been registered as a sex offender in Illinois since Aug. 7, 2020, connected to an aggravated criminal sexual abuse conviction out of Lee County. That victim was 5 and Larson was 24, according to the Illinois State Police’s sex offender database.

He was charged in 2018 on a 2017 abuse case and pleaded guilty on May 21, 2020, according to Lee County court records. He was sentenced to five years in prison in 2020, records show.

DeKalb County Associate Judge Sarah Gallagher Chami granted the DeKalb County State’s Attorney’s Office’s petition to deny Larson pretrial release at a hearing Wednesday.

In her ruling, she made note of his criminal history. She cited his 2020 conviction of aggravated criminal sexual abuse, said he had five prior failures to appear in court, and an order of protection that was filed against him in 2025.

Gallagher Chami also noted that medical staff told police that the baby’s injuries weren’t consistent with what Larson told them, however.

He’s being held at the DeKalb County Jail in Sycamore and will next appear in court at 9 a.m. on March 30 in courtroom 220.

The infant died on Tuesday at Loyola University Medical Center after suffering a fracture to the skull and brain hemorrhages, records show.

The baby’s mother was at work at the time the child was injured, police said in court records.

Larson told a hospital security officer that the infant was running at home and “ran face first into a wall,” police wrote in court records. But hours earlier, he’d texted the baby’s mother, telling her that the child fell off the bed while asleep and “his nose is busted pretty good,” court filings state.

Larson then brought the baby around DeKalb to run errands, he told police. But when they arrived home hours later, Larson saw the child was unconscious, court records state. He then drove the baby to Northwestern Medicine Kishwaukee Hospital Monday evening.

Gallagher Chami described Larson’s behavior at Kishwaukee Hospital on Monday as “erratic.”

Police said area license plate reader cameras picked up a 2008 Honda Accord – the same one that Larson used to bring the baby at to Kishwaukee Hospital – around the DeKalb area at multiple places between noon and 3 p.m. Monday.

Police responded to the hospital at 4:19 p.m. Monday.

During the Wednesday hearing, prosecutor Brooks Locke argued that what Larson told a hospital security officer had happened to the baby was “a completely implausible explanation for the child’s injuries.”

An attorney with DeKalb County Public Defender’s Office, which was assigned to Larson by Gallagher Chami during the hearing, argued that Larson’s account of what caused the infant’s injuries was the same when speaking with multiple officers: Larson alleged his son had fallen off a bed and injured his face.

Authorities were first alerted to a possible child abuse case by hospital workers at Northwestern Medicine Kishwaukee Hospital in DeKalb on Monday. DeKalb police said in a news release that they received a call regarding an infant who “had been rushed to the emergency room with severe facial injuries.” The baby, a boy, was airlifted to a Chicago area hospital due to the severity of their injuries, according to records filed in court Wednesday.

DeKalb County sheriff’s deputies interacted with Larson at the DeKalb hospital and said he appeared to be intoxicated, refused orders and resisted attempts to be placed in custody, police wrote in court filings.

Larson also was charged with three counts of aggravated battery of a police officer, a Class 2 felony; one count of aggravated resisting a police officer, a Class 4 felony; and one count of disorderly conduct, in connection to his interactions with sheriff’s deputies.

Deputies alleged that Larson ran from the hospital to a nearby outpatient clinic and began yelling at employees while deputies attempted to hold him for questioning.

Police alleged that at about noon on Monday, Larson texted the baby’s mother and said “you think I am punching [infant’s name] but I am not, and [infant’s name] looks terrible,” police wrote in court records. She replied to Larson, “that is why we have to be careful,” court records state.

The mother said the baby didn’t have any injuries when she left him with his father at about 9:30 a.m. Monday. The three of them had gone to a WIC appointment earlier that morning, according to court records. A WIC worker told police the child looked healthy at that point.

On life support by Tuesday and not expected to survive if taken off it, the child died at 5:45 p.m. at Loyola University Medical Center in Cook County. His mother was with him by then, records show.

This is a developing story which will be updated.