Pageant Queen Receives Life Sentence for Fatally Beating Boyfriend’s Toddler in Her College Dorm Room, Breaks Down in Court By Toria Sheffield

A former pageant queen in Georgia has been sentenced to life in prison after killing her boyfriend’s 18-month-old son.

Trinity Poague was found guilty of five counts on Friday, Dec. 5, including two counts of felony murder, per a video of the sentencing shared by Court TV. 

“I don’t do a lot of speaking when I’m passing the sentence,” Judge W. James Sizemore Jr. of the Southwestern Circuit Court of Georgia said in the video. “The bottom line is you’re going to receive a sentence of life in prison, which is the appropriate sentence for the conduct that you have been convicted of.”

He went on to say that Poague would also be sentenced to serve 20 additional years concurrently.

Poague appeared stoic while receiving her sentencing, though she grew visibly emotional earlier in the day when hearing the jury’s verdict, per the Court TV video.

Poague was initially arrested in January 2024, according to a press release from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI). GBI said the boy — who was later identified as Romeo Angeles (also called Jaxton Drew) — was found unresponsive on the campus of Georgia Southwestern State University on Jan. 14, 2024. Poague, then 18, was a student there at the time, per WTVY 4.

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According to footage of Poague’s trial shared by Court TV, prosecutors claimed that Poague resented the boy because she wanted a child of her own with her boyfriend.

In an indictment previously reported by WALB and WDHN, Sumter County authorities claimed Poague’s abuse included “inflicting blunt-force trauma to the head and torso of his body.”

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On the day of the toddler’s death, students in Poague’s college dorm claimed they heard a child crying for a long time until “everyone said that suddenly it just stopped,” Lilly Waterman, a student at the university, told WRDW. 

“And no one knew what happened,” Waterman added.

Poague was crowned Miss Donalsonville in 2024. She was stripped of the title after being charged in relation to the death of the toddler, per Early County News.