Plea deal ends case of man accused of killing Waterford toddler. ‘We don’t get our boy back’
A Sonora man has accepted a plea agreement in the 2019 death of Waterford toddler Koltyn Sparks.
Joseph Luke Maloney, 30, was sentenced Tuesday, Sept. 10, to six years in state prison after the second-degree murder charge was reduced to voluntary manslaughter. He will be released in about a year because of time already served in the Tuolumne County Jail and credits for good behavior.
Maloney was the boyfriend of Koltyn’s mother, Nicole Sparks, and was babysitting him at Maloney’s Shepherd Street home the night before the boy’s death.
An emergency room physician testified in 2021 that Koltyn had bruises all over his body, a lacerated liver and bleeding on his brain. A motive and possible weapons were not disclosed during that preliminary hearing, which ended with Maloney ordered to trial. Various delays kept the trial from happening.
The boy’s survivors reacted to Maloney’s plea deal on a Facebook page called Justice for Koltyn: “We are absolutely not happy. This is not what we wanted. This is not what he deserves . There is truly no justice. We don’t get our boy back, and the toll that has been inflicted upon us has been heartbreaking.”
Koltyn’s father speaks in court
Kolytn’s father is Joshua Blackwood, who spoke at the sentencing, according to the Union Democrat. “I hope you have that empty feeling in your heart forever, like I do,” he told the defendant.
The Sonora newspaper also reported that Nicole Sparks committed suicide last December. Family members said in court that her son’s death and the legal case contributed to it.
Nicole Sparks had been charged with child endangerment on the grounds that she should have known Maloney was an unfit babysitter. Judge Donald Segerstrom dismissed her case a few days after ordering Maloney to trial in Tuolumne Superior Court.
Maloney faced up to life in prison if convicted of second-degree murder. He pleaded guilty to manslaughter before visiting Judge Harry Elias, who then ordered the sentence.
District Attorney Cassandra Jenecke told the Union Democrat that she consulted with Koltyn’s family before reaching the plea deal. It “shows that Joseph Maloney has admitted to causing an act that caused the death of Koltyn,” she said.
Defense attorney Charles Smith acknowledged to the newspaper that Maloney should have been more aware of Koltyn’s condition the night before he died. Smith also said experts would have testified at the trial that the injuries could have been inflicted by someone else earlier.
Family advocates for other abused kids
The Facebook page for Koltyn has tried to raise awareness about violence against children in general. It has advocated for a state law that would speed up notification to police when injured kids arrive at hospitals.
Koltyn’s paternal grandmother, Tracy Gulcynski, was featured in a Modesto Bee story in 2021 about delays in several such cases.
“In the meantime they missed out on … (the suspect’s) state of mind … if there were drugs and alcohol involved with the suspect,” she said. “They missed out on going to the crime scene and questioning the suspect. By the time everything rolled around and came together, he’d lawyered up and has never made a statement the whole two years.”
