Waterford toddler died two years ago in unsolved Sonora case. Protest seeks answers
Family and friends will gather Friday morning to mark the second anniversary of the unsolved death of Waterford toddler Koltyn Sparks-Blackwood.
The protest will be in Sonora, where police say the boy suffered fatal injuries while in the care of a babysitter on Jan. 15, 2019.
The event will take place in a pandemic-safe manner at 11 a.m. at Courthouse Square, at Washington and Yaney streets in downtown Sonora. The site is next to the Tuolumne County Courthouse.
“We still have no arrest as of today and we are still pushing the entire county for justice for our boy,” grandmother Tracy Gulcynski said in an email to The Modesto Bee.
The protest is the latest of several in Tuolumne and Stanislaus counties since Koltyn’s death at 23 months. He was the son of Nicole Sparks of Waterford and Joshua Blackwood of Oakdale.
The family said in 2019 that Koltyn suffered blunt force trauma to his abdomen and was shaken and possibly smothered. He was first taken to Sonora Adventist Health hospital, then airlifted to UC Davis Children’s Hospital in Sacramento, where he died later that day.
The identity of the babysitter has not been released. The alleged injures happened at a home on South Shepherd Street, near the south end of downtown.
The Sonora Police Department could not be reached Thursday afternoon for an update. It has disclosed little about the case so far.
The family has a Facebook page called Justice for Koltyn. His survivors seek not just answers about his death, but changes to the laws to protect other children from abuse, Gulcynski said.
