A south Phoenix man is behind bars on a first-degree murder charge after investigators determined he was responsible for the death of his baby boy — a case that began as a medical emergency last summer and slowly unraveled into a homicide investigation.
Domingo Herrera Espinoza, 26, was taken into custody Thursday, roughly six months after his infant son was found unresponsive at a home near 19th Drive and Chipman Road. Emergency responders rushed to the scene on the evening of August 31st, 2025, and transported the critically injured child to a nearby hospital. The boy died three days later.
At the time, detectives spoke with family members and established that Herrera Espinoza had been alone with the child when the incident occurred. However, the case didn’t move toward criminal charges until late February of this year, when the Maricopa County Medical Examiner’s Office formally ruled the infant’s manner of death a homicide — a determination that cleared the path for an arrest.
Herrera Espinoza now faces charges of first-degree murder and child abuse, as well as a probation violation. He is being held in the Maricopa County jail on a bond exceeding $1 million.
The case follows a trajectory that investigators and prosecutors say is not uncommon in infant death cases — where physical evidence and medical findings can take months to fully analyze before the legal process moves forward. For the child’s family, the arrest closes one chapter of an agonizing wait, even as the harder road of a murder prosecution now begins.
