A killer dad was overheard saying he wanted to sell his son's pushchair on eBay just hours after his son died following a horrific spree of abuse during lockdown.
Shannon Marsden, 22, and Stephen Boden, 30, subjected their 10-month-old son, Finley Boden, to "appalling" abuse before his death on Christmas Day 2020.
The sick pair were found guilty of murder on Friday after a court heard the boy suffered over 130 injuries as they burnt and beat him to death.
At the start of the trial at Derby Crown Court last November, prosecutor Mary Prior KC told the jury that the pair were “in it together”, repeatedly lying to hide their abuse from the police, social services and their own families.
The court heard how the pair conspired together to inflict "repeated acts of violence" on their son, and remained in love despite incidents of domestic abuse and frequent drug use.
They also enjoyed smoking cannabis together, which contributed to Finley being placed under a child protection plan by social services a month before he was born.
When a family court ordered that Finley be returned to his parents in October 2020, the pair reduced their cannabis use in an effort to convince social services that they were responsible parents.
But after Finley returned to the family home in Old Whittington, Derbyshire, in November, cannabis use became commonplace, with his death coming just 39 days after he was given back.
Money sent by relatives for the children was spent on drugs, and one drug deal was witnessed by a social worker two days before Finley’s death.
Boden later admitted to smoking the drug in the same room as his son.
On December 21, days before Finley’s death, Marsden messaged a relative saying: “Get the police to mine, tell them I’m scared of Stephen around the baby.
“He’s just hit me again… tell them he’ll kill me. He just tried.
“Please, I will be dead. Not joking.”
On December 25, 2020, he fatally collapsed after suffering a cardiac arrest at the family's "cluttered" and unclean terraced home, with faeces later found in the bedroom.
Finley was taken to hospital after paramedics were called at 2.33am, but despite medics' best efforts he was pronounced dead at 3.45am.
Prosecutor Mary Prior KC described how Finley had suffered a catalogue of "appalling" injuries before he died, including 71 bruises over his body and a total of 57 bone fractures.
He had two burns on his left hand, with one coming from a "hot, flat surface" and the other appearing to be from a cigarette lighter flame.
Many of the injuries were thought to have been inflicted in the short period before his fatal collapse.
Only hours after his son's death, Boden was heard telling Marsden at hospital that he was going to sell Finley's pushchair on eBay, later claiming to police that he only said this in an effort to lighten the mood.
Police officers also observed Boden asking a relative what food will be served for Christmas dinner.
The pair went on to tell a series of lies in the hours following his death about his supposed illness, offering different accounts of the details to different people at different times.
But while visiting Finley's body in a hospital chapel of rest a couple of weeks later on January 11 2021, Marsden also heard saying: "His dad's battered him to death. I didn't protect him."
Footage was shown at trial of Marsden pushing Finley in his pushchair around Chesterfield town centre on Christmas Eve, and then later of Boden with the pram at a Tesco Express in Old Whittington, at 7.16pm.
It was the last time he was seen alive.
Boden, of Romford Way in Barrow Hill, Chesterfield, and Marsden, of no fixed address, will be sentenced on May 26.
