The case progressed from a September 2025 emergency response through a search, arrest and expanded prosecution before Levi Higgins-Green pleaded guilty.
CHARLESTON, Ore. — Eleven months after emergency crews rushed a critically injured 9-year-old boy from a coastal Oregon home to the hospital, his father stood convicted of the child’s murder and six other crimes, bringing a lengthy investigation and prosecution to an end without a trial.
The final court action came Aug. 31, 2026, when Levi Higgins-Green pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and six additional offenses. Judge Martin Stone accepted the pleas and imposed a life sentence for the murder, with a minimum of 25 years, plus a combined 80 months on the remaining convictions. The Coos County Sheriff’s Office calculated the full minimum at 380 months, or 31 years and eight months. The resolution closed a case that had changed repeatedly since deputies first arrived at the Cape Arago Highway residence on Sept. 28, 2025.
On that September day, law enforcement and medical responders were dispatched after a report that the boy had been stabbed with a spear. The first explanation received at the scene pointed not to an adult attacker but to another child. Deputies were told the victim’s sister had accidentally stabbed him while the children were playing. Charleston firefighters, Bay Cities Ambulance personnel and others worked to save the boy before he was taken to Bay Area Hospital. He died from the injury.
The sheriff’s office did not immediately announce a homicide arrest. Instead, deputies secured the scene and continued investigating through the following days. That period became the first major turning point in the case. By Oct. 3, detectives had obtained a search warrant for Higgins-Green’s residence. After the search, they arrested him and booked him into the Coos County Jail on a second-degree murder charge. Investigators announced that the father, rather than the boy’s sister, was responsible for the stabbing.
Officials did not publish the specific evidence that led from the original accident report to the murder arrest. The sheriff’s public account contains no detailed forensic analysis, no inventory of items recovered in the search and no complete transcript of interviews conducted during the investigation. It also does not state precisely who gave deputies the first version involving the sister. Those details remain outside the official summaries, even though the broad investigative conclusion was later confirmed by Higgins-Green’s guilty plea.
As the case continued, its scope widened beyond the child’s death. The sheriff’s office said investigators found instances of domestic violence involving other adults and children living in the home and said the conduct had taken place over years. Authorities withheld the surviving family members’ names at their request. The new findings eventually produced charges that made the prosecution a wider domestic-violence and mistreatment case rather than a single-count murder prosecution.
By the time the case reached its final court resolution, Higgins-Green faced offenses covering several forms of conduct. He pleaded guilty to strangulation constituting domestic violence, second-degree assault constituting domestic violence, two counts of third-degree assault and two counts of first-degree criminal mistreatment, in addition to second-degree murder. District Attorney Jody Newby prosecuted the case. Because the defendant admitted the offenses, prosecutors did not have to take the evidence through a jury trial.
The absence of a trial affects what the public knows about the sequence between the October 2025 arrest and the August 2026 pleas. In a contested proceeding, testimony and exhibits might have provided more information about the search, family statements, medical evidence and the separate incidents behind the non-murder charges. A guilty plea resolves criminal responsibility without requiring prosecutors to make the same public evidentiary presentation. As a result, the sheriff’s summaries remain the clearest official outline of the case.
Secondary reporting has offered some additional detail. One outlet, citing court documents, reported that a surviving sibling told investigators Higgins-Green stabbed the boy after becoming angry while they were playing a Pokémon game. The sheriff’s public materials do not independently state that motive or describe the sibling interview. The report therefore adds an attributed account of the events but does not justify treating a disagreement over a game as a fully established official motive.
The sentencing itself created another point requiring careful reconstruction. Stone imposed 80 months for the six non-murder crimes and a life sentence with a 300-month minimum for second-degree murder, according to the sheriff’s office. Adding the terms produces the agency’s stated total of 380 months. Some later coverage called the minimum 30 years and eight months. The sheriff’s number, however, converts to 31 years and eight months, making that the better-supported total.
A similar correction applies to the offenses. Some reports described Higgins-Green as having pleaded guilty to criminal mischief. The sheriff’s sentencing release instead lists two counts of first-degree criminal mistreatment. The remainder of the official list includes strangulation, one second-degree assault and two third-degree assaults. Keeping those charges separate and accurate is important because the 80-month portion of the sentence came from those six convictions and was imposed in addition to the murder term.
The sheriff’s office credited numerous agencies with work across the case, illustrating how many stages unfolded between the initial emergency and the final sentence. Charleston Fire Department and Bay Cities Ambulance were involved in trying to save the child. Coos Bay police assisted, as did Oregon State Police, Eugene police and Kids Hope Center. The case moved from medical response to scene security, follow-up investigation, a residential search, arrest, prosecution, guilty pleas and sentencing over roughly 11 months.
Throughout that process, authorities limited information about the children and other surviving family members. The boy’s identity was not included in the final sheriff’s sentencing announcement, and the agency expressly said other family names were omitted at their request. Officials also avoided publishing graphic descriptions of the injury. The public record therefore focuses on the basic facts necessary to understand the homicide and the resulting convictions while preserving some privacy for relatives who were not defendants.
The timeline also shows how early descriptions of an event can differ sharply from the conclusions reached after investigation. On Sept. 28, the event was presented to deputies as an accidental stabbing during play. Five days later, Higgins-Green was arrested for murder. By the following August, he had pleaded guilty not only to that killing but to six other offenses that authorities connected to violence and mistreatment within the household.
The final legal result is now settled even though parts of the factual history remain undisclosed. Higgins-Green is serving a life sentence, with the sheriff’s office reporting that he must serve a combined minimum of 380 months under the judgment imposed by Stone. No murder trial remains pending, and officials have not announced another scheduled proceeding that would be expected to produce a fuller public account of the evidence.
Author note: Last updated October 21, 2026.