Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Man Drowns 5-Year-Old Boy in Toilet and Scalds His Sister In Bathtub

Episode Date: July 24, 2024

Nearly two years after 5-year-old Blu Rolland's remains were found wrapped buried under the floor of a home in Moro, Arkansas, his mother's boyfriend learns his punishment. Nathan Bridges had been accused of murdering Blu and burning his older sister in a bathtub. Blu's mother, Ashley Rolland, faces several charges including capital murder and abuse of a corpse. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy talks with a family friend of Blu's grandmother and defense attorney Jonna Spilbor about the horrifying case in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW:Download the FREE Upside App at https://upside.app.link/crimefix to get an extra 25 cents back for every gallon on your first tank of gas.Host:Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5Guests:Jonna Spilbor https://www.instagram.com/jonna_spilbor/CRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@LawandCrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. These children have been beaten, tied up, restricted, not fed. Anything you can think of now, with the exception of what you would expect to happen, that wasn't the trauma. A five-year-old little boy is drowned in a toilet and then buried underneath the floor of his mother's home. Now his mother's boyfriend is going to prison. I have the sad case of Blue Roland and his sister, who police say was abused but thankfully survived. Welcome to Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy.

Blue Roland was a five-year-old little boy who should still be here, but he died a horrible, horrible death at the hands of his mother's boyfriend, Nathan Bridges, in 2022. Nathan Bridges just pleaded guilty to charges related to Blue's murder in Lee County, Arkansas. The details, at least what was outlined in court documents, are horrifying, and what really happened is probably much worse than that. Blue and his sister were being abused, and Blue was murdered. Blue's alleged sin, biting Nathan Bridge's finger. Blue's mother also faces charges, and I'll get to that in a moment. But first, I want to outline what detectives claim Ashley Rowland told them about how Blue died.

Sheriff's deputies were called to the family's home in December of 2022 after receiving a call from Blue's grandmother, who was also the grandmother of his sister. Ashley Rowland's father was also there and had told police that his daughter told him that Blue was dead inside the home. The affidavit, deputies located where Blue was reported to be and render aid if he was alive. Deputies located where Blue was reported to be and found newly nailed down boards. Deputies removed the board and found disturbed earth underneath. Deputies removed the top layer of earth and found a child's flip-flop shoes and a red and blue blanket. Removing the top layer of earth released the pungent odor of decay. Investigators also interviewed Ashley Rowland in December of 2022. An affidavit says Rowland told detectives that Blue died on September 9th of 2022. Blue had angered her boyfriend,

Nathan Bridges, by biting his finger when Bridges stuck it in Blue's mouth. Bridges took Blue to the bathroom and his punishment repeatedly placed Blue's head in the water-filled toilet until he drowned him. Nathan cut a hole in their wooden floor in the living room while Blue was in the bathroom with Bridges. When Bridges exited the bathroom, Roland entered the bathroom and saw Blue struggling to breathe, and his body was limp. The affidavit continues. Roland stated that the injuries observed on her daughter were also caused by Bridges when he held her head and upper torso under hot water in the bathtub. Roland said that her daughter suffered from behavior issues and that Bridges put Taylor in hot water as punishment for her behavior issues.

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Use the promo code CRIMEFIX to get an extra 25 cents back on every gallon on your first tank of gas. I want to bring in Anita Whidbey. She is a friend of Karen Rowland, who is the grandmother of Blue and his sister. Anita, what is your reaction to this plea agreement that Nathan Bridges agreed to and was given? My personal opinion is he should have gotten pretty bad, but I know the state of Arkansas hasn't put anybody to death in a while, so I didn't expect the death penalty, but Karen certainly did. But it was a horrendous act. It's not like he just all of a sudden decided to kill him. This happened months in the making.

When you say months in the making, what do you mean? Do you, there was abuse, months of abuse leading up to this? By the time Karen was able to get Taylor for visiting rights she had been she tried for a year to get them and mom kept moving and not letting her have them and she finally got a piece of paper that says that she could come and get them and Taylor was in bad shape and she there they told her that Blue was at a friend's house. And she said, well, you better find him because as soon as I get back from the hospital with

her, I'm coming to get Blue. And so when she got tailored to the local hospital, they obviously saw what kind of condition she was in and they sent a sheriff's department out to their house and nobody could produce glue and he has been when they did find him buried up under the floorboards of the house that the mother in the living was living in he had been dead three months and taylor was probably on the edge she She was malnourished. She had multiple injuries, and she couldn't walk. The bottom of her feet had blisters on them. From being burned in the bathtub from the water? These burns may have looked more like cigarette burns, but they could have been

bathwater because her chest was burned with bath water. And that may be one of the reasons why she won't stay in the bathroom by herself. But then she saw she had, she was there when he drowned Blue. So I don't know exactly in what location of the house she was, but they had been mistreated for a while before Karen was able to get them. What do you and Karen want to see happen to Ashley? She's still facing charges. Right. She's still facing. I'm sure Karen wants the book thrown at her.

You know, I am not as tight. I mean, I am, like I said, I'm there for Karen more than I am. Taylor has had such an outpouring of love and gifts and people trying to see that she has a more pleasant life now. But, you know, grandmother still has to take her to all those places. And then she has to deal with what happens if she traumatized her afterwards. You know, like why she gave her a big birthday party um this year because the last two years she wasn't able to do anything for Taylor the mom wouldn't let her have her for one thing for the birthday before the all this happened but with Blue being dead for three months and Taylor looking so poorly I mean she was very thin and she was a chubby kid

she was very thin and the Le Bonheur says that this did not happen just like overnight she had been confined in a small space for some reason maybe a closet or a box and she had broken wrists her leg was damaged she had some some kind of brain injury you know you get knocked upside the head you know you get and it was just it's just horrific injuries in the person and the kids still alive you know and it's still it's maybe crying well she wasn't by the time we got her she had a vacant look in her eyes and she didn't smile and she didn't talk and she jabbers all the time she She talked a lot. Now, Blue was not talking as much. I think he would talk to Taylor. But he didn't say much other than playing, you know.

I didn't hear him talk much at all. He did love monster trucks because I took my grandson over there. And my grandson took three of his little monster trucks over there. And that boy gathered them up he had all of them in his arms and he couldn't play because he was carrying them around and i said that is so pitiful that he loved those monster trucks and apparently he didn't have none but he he carried them the whole time we were there rather than sitting down and playing with them how can people help tay Taylor if they want to?

You said there's been a big outpouring for her. Anybody can send money to First National Bank. If they just put Taylor anywhere on it, they know what to do with it. They let us have that account for free. I mean, we don't have to pay anything for it. And if anybody sends money directly to the bank, it'll go where it's supposed to, but in the meantime, I mean, she's gotten, she's doing pretty, I mean, Taylor's doing pretty good other than her mental status, and they are in

counseling, and then Karen having to worry about the bills and making sure she gets the air conditioner keeps running and whatnot. But that is the immediate help because there's not an income in the house. Now, Taylor wound up getting a little bit, but it's not enough. I think 500 or something like that. I don't really remember, but it's not a lot. It's not enough to buy groceries and pay bills and stuff. So that's the immediate need. Taylor is doing well with her clothes and shoes. Karen's making sure she has everything. Her hair has growed out, so now she gets bows and stuff in her hair and ponytail holders. She had no hair when we got her.

They had cut it all off. Anita, we really hope that her condition, Taylor's condition, continues to improve. And I'm so sorry for the loss of Blue. It's awful. Thank you so much for joining me. I want to bring in Jonna Spilbor. She's a defense attorney to discuss this awful, awful case. Jonna, you're a defense attorney, so I'm sure

you're not surprised that they resolved this case, at least Nathan Bridges' case, through a plea deal. Yeah, he must have realized that he was absolutely dead to rights and there was no point in putting family members or anybody else through a trial because how horrific, even just reading about this case, Anjanette, it gets you right in the gut. I mean, how anybody could be such a monster is, I'll tell you what, I'll tell you what, I would have a very tough time. I would probably have to turn this case down no matter, even if the defendant came to me and said, I want to throw myself on the sword and take a plea, I don't think I could do it. It's that bad. Really?

So as a defense attorney, you're saying this case, I mean, we have little blue Roland, a little boy, five-year-old little boy. Little boys do things like bite fingers if you put your finger in their mouth. Right. fingers if you put your finger in their mouth uh right head shoved in a toilet and drowned his mother according to law enforcement was aware of what was going on and did nothing to stop it you know her trial is scheduled to start later this year but this is what boys do they're little boys they do stuff like this so you're saying I wouldn't be able to take this case and you're a defense attorney you see bad stuff all the time uh. And I've been doing this for 30 years. But this one really gets me viscerally because, you know, look, this stuff more often than not doesn't happen in a vacuum. And I think there's

some history here as well, where you had stuff should have happened to interfere with the way this case seemed to have been going when you have an abusive parental figure. He's not even the person who the defendant here wasn't an actual parent, was the boyfriend of this child. And then you have the mother of this child who, I don't know, is she abused as well? Is she herself a victim? These are probably part of the reason why she's going to trial and did not take a plea. But it is just so incredibly hard because when you think about a defenseless child, being a child and dying in such a horrific fashion and the fear that must have just befallen this young boy in his last moments, it'll make me well up. And I am an ice princess.

It'll make me well up. It's a very difficult case to analyze and talk about. Let's talk about mom, Ashley, because let's put her picture up on the screen too, because in her mugshot when she was arrested in December of 2022, and she's facing serious charges. I mean, she's facing capital murder, child abuse charges, a whole slew of charges. She has a big fat black eye. We don't know if Nathan Bridges did that to her, but she has a black eye. She has a huge shiner and she got it somehow. So you're thinking it's not just limited to the kids.

She could have been abused as well. That's what I'm thinking for a couple of reasons, not just the shiner, although that is a big clue, but more often than not, when you have the mother of a child like this and something like this results where a child dies, you have to ask yourself either the mother is also an abuser or she is being abused. And what I see all the time, this is what's hard to wrap my mind around, whether I'm in family court with people fighting over custody, people filing family offenses against boyfriends and lovers and husbands and what have you, or whether your

client's on the receiving end of a child protective services report. These things, people see, people see some sort of clue that something is going on. And you have these agencies and you have these courthouses that are supposed to come in and help resolve these conflicts before the most serious thing occurs, like the death of a child. And so there's a wide net that you have to look through and call through when these things happen. Not to say that, I mean, I don't know. So I'm assuming whoever is representing the mother of this child is going to be examining all that as well. But it really makes you say to yourself, where are all the other people? Where are the teachers? Where are the family members? Where was the courthouse? Where was CPS? Where are all these people that this child could literally slip through the cracks and lose his life? It's very sad. Nathan Bridges, the plea agreement, he got 60 years in prison.

But I had spoken briefly with Blue's grandmother and she wanted a trial. She thought this was going to trial. And then she shows up to court and there's a plea agreement. And she felt like he should get the death penalty, not 60 years, even though she was told 60 years is going to be basically a death sentence for this guy. So what are your thoughts on that, the 60-year sentence? In a case like this, I honestly don't think it is long enough. And at the same time, I completely understand when you have a victim, a family of a victim who wants a trial, that's their way of saying, I want my day in court. I want a jury to meet out the punishment. I want that. And that comes from their heart and that can be very emotional. If a jury would have handed down the same sentence, then there's no need to put the family members through that again. There's no need to have the resources utilized for that when you can get a defendant to say, listen to really want her day in court, but she's getting

that day in court because he's not walking free. He's not walking free. But life without the possibility of parole would have made me feel a little bit better. What is your prediction for what happens to mom? Mom, even if she were being abused and we don't know that she was, that's all speculation, but does mom's case get resolved in a similar fashion i mean she's the mother of the child and she's accused of i'm going to read off the charges again capital murder abuse of a corpse tampering with physical evidence you know that would be for burying her sons or at least being a part of burying the son's body under the floor boards and endangering the welfare of a minor in the first degree that would be for her

daughter. So does mom get a similar type of plea agreement or does mom go to trial? I mean, do you see the prosecutors in this case in Arkansas trying to resolve this case through a plea agreement? Well, they took probably the most culpable person of this duo and gave him a plea agreement. So I can't imagine that they wouldn't offer mom some sort of plea agreement. And the

questions that I have are, did mom offer any testimony that got them to the plea agreement with the boyfriend? Maybe she assisted in some way, number one. Number two, they are going to have to discern whether she is also a victim in some regard, whether she was a battered woman or abused and for some reason couldn't come to the aid or didn't come to the aid of her own children. And that hopefully will be recorded somewhere. Like I said, this is not the first time that this man injured a child. I mean, in this case, fatally injured a child. So hopefully there's some sort of record there. And just in general, I mean, I almost hate to say this, but we tend to have some more sympathy for mothers than we do of the male component in cases like this. Look at Casey Anthony went to trial

and nothing happened to her. So maybe they'll give her some sort of plea deal that will be far less than what this defendant got is what I imagine. Or she's going to mount a full-blown defense, Anjanette. Maybe she's going to mount a full-blown defense, Anjanette. Maybe she is, maybe she's going to mount a battered woman defense of some sort, which will require expert testimony and a history and all that. I guess that's yet to be seen, but neither one of those things would surprise me. A lesser plea deal or a full-blown defense, neither one would surprise me. Well, it certainly is just unbelievable the way that people who have children allow them to be treated or the way that people treat children. Kids can be frustrating.

I mean, somebody bites you on the finger, I'm sure that could hurt, but maybe you shouldn't be sticking your finger into a child's mouth in the first place. That's what they do. This is what things that kids do. So that poor sweet child, I just can't believe it. And it's just absolutely mind-boggling the way that people treat children. Can I say one other thing to that, the way that people... So in real life, these things happen. But for example, I have a case right now. Three children are involved. The mother has chosen, the parents are separated. The mother

moved in with a felon, but not just any felon. This man served 14 years in prison for nearly killing somebody, got out, is off parole. And that's who this mother is choosing to now spend her life with. So the father of the children is fighting having the children be anywhere near this person. So it's like the decisions that you make as an adult when you're a parent trickle down and they are going to affect your children. And you have to be careful with that. And you have to ultimately protect them beyond any other decision that you make. And this is where the courts, again, and the courts are involved in this. Which way will the court come down? Will the court say,

well, you know, the mother's there, it's fine. Or will the court say, no, we are going to, we're going to step in and keep these kids away from mother's choice. It is amazingly complicated. And the courts have so many cases like this, Anjanette, so many cases on varying degrees that they sometimes can't give the attention that is due to each and every one of them. Yeah, it's a problem. It's a problem. Johnna Spilbor, thank you so much.

Appreciate it as always. Thank you. Same here. And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time.