A mother has been accused of murdering her five-year-old son with a kettlebell before calling his father to say "we don’t have a son no more.”
Cedar Mae Sarten, 43, was charged on Tuesday by detectives in Seattle, Washington with the first-degree murder of her son Robert “Bodhi” Gagner-Sarten. She was charged at a medical facility in Seattle, according to the Fairbanks Police Department.
Sarten, who had reportedly been suffering from a mental illness, is accused of attacking her son with a 20-pound kettlebell-style weight, crushing his skull, according to an autopsy.
His lifeless body also suffered knife wounds, the autopsy report said.
According to a criminal complaint obtained by Law&Crime, Sarten reportedly phoned Robert’s father, Robert Gagner, and left a voicemail saying: “Robert this is really bad you seriously need to come over here right now.
“Please don’t freak out. We don’t have a son no more.”
She then reportedly slashed herself with a knife before police arrived on the scene and took her to the hospital.
The horrific incident unfolded on October 14 at around 10am when Fairbanks emergency operators received a 911 call from Cedar Mae Sarten. who called from her 10th Avenue apartment to report that “someone had harmed her son and that he was definitely dead.”
She told police that she had last seen her son alive between 1am and 2am when he had been falling asleep and insisted to them that she called 911 the night before but had failed to get through to an operator.
As the initial responding officer entered her apartment, five-year-old Robert was found dead on the bed with a bloodied knife next to him, and a second knife and the kettlebell used to crush his head on the floor.
Police stressed that “a significant amount of blood” had been found throughout the apartment.
According to Fairbanks PD, the 43-year-old had been convicted of child endangerment for harming her son previously in a violent attack at Fairbanks Memorial Hospital in July 2020. She had “grabbed onto his head and twisted it” when her son was around 16 months old.
Sarten reportedly has a history of 20 arrests on her record, including for felony theft, assault, criminal mischief, as well as the reckless endangerment conviction against her son.
In a GoFundMe setup by family and friends for Bodhi, loved ones described him as the “sweetest” and “most kind-hearted, loving little boy” who “absolutely loved cheese pizza (his most favorite food in the world) and mozzarella sticks”.
The five-year-old’s body is being laid to rest in the village of Ruby, a spot overlooking the picturesque Yukon River where his grandfather was also laid to rest.
His father Robert Gagner was said to be devastated by the loss of his son, who had joint custody over.
Sarten is being held in the King County Correctional Facility Washington on a $2 million dollar bail bond, according to jail records.
Fairbanks PD said: “We would like to thank the Fairbanks Fire Department for their assistance during this incident, as well as the Crisis Now Mobile Crisis Team for supporting family members of the victim after this tragic event.”
Police urged anyone with information to contact Detective Robert Hall at rhall@fairbanks.us or 907-450-6500.
