Patricia Saintizaire was convicted in July of first-degree murder, aggravated child abuse and tampering with a witness.
BARTOW, Fla. — A Polk County judge sentenced Patricia Saintizaire to life in prison Friday for the murder of her 4-year-old adopted son, Bryan Boyer, bringing the criminal case to its sentencing stage more than two years after the child’s death.
Saintizaire was convicted by a Polk County jury on July 8 of first-degree murder, two counts of aggravated child abuse and tampering with a witness. Bryan died in May 2024 after suffering injuries that investigators and prosecutors said were consistent with repeated physical abuse. The sentencing followed the guilty verdicts issued about five weeks earlier.
The case began after Orlando Health hospital staff notified the Polk County Sheriff’s Office on May 2, 2024, that a 4-year-old child had died under suspicious circumstances. Bryan had first been taken to a hospital in Davenport before he was transferred to Orlando because of the seriousness of his injuries, according to investigators.
An autopsy conducted the next day found old and more recent scarring on Bryan’s back as well as bruising and other injuries to his arms and legs. The medical examiner identified a deep liver laceration caused by blunt-force trauma and determined that his injuries were consistent with ongoing abuse. His death was classified as a homicide.
Investigators said Bryan had appeared healthy and was behaving normally when he attended school on May 1, 2024. School and bus cameras, along with interviews with people who interacted with him that day, supported that timeline. Later that evening, Bryan’s older brother noticed that the child could not walk on his own and was struggling to sit up while attempting to eat.
According to the sheriff’s investigation, Saintizaire told the teenager that Bryan was faking his condition and instructed him to feed the child. Bryan later became unresponsive. His brother began CPR and told Saintizaire that the boy needed to be taken to a hospital.
Detectives also recovered home-surveillance recordings during a forensic examination of Saintizaire’s cellphone. Authorities said one recording showed Saintizaire striking Bryan while he was on the floor. Another showed the child being thrown into a swimming pool while his hands were tied behind his back. Those recordings became part of the evidence surrounding the abuse investigation.
Saintizaire initially denied to detectives that she used physical discipline on Bryan. Investigators said the child’s older brother also initially denied witnessing abuse, but later provided a different account after he was placed in the custody of the Florida Department of Children and Families. The teenager told detectives that Saintizaire had instructed him not to tell investigators what had happened, according to the sheriff’s office. That conduct formed the basis of the witness-tampering case against her.
Bryan had been brought from Haiti to the United States and adopted by Saintizaire in April 2023, when he was 3 years old, according to the Polk County Sheriff’s Office. He was living with the family in Davenport when he suffered the injuries that led to his death the following year.
Friday’s life sentence follows Saintizaire’s convictions on all four counts submitted to the jury. The first-degree murder verdict represented the most serious charge stemming from Bryan’s death, while the additional convictions addressed the abuse documented by investigators and the attempt to influence the older child’s account to law enforcement.
Author note: Last updated August 18, 2026.