Two days after the three-year anniversary of 13-month-old Jace Alexander McDonald’s death, a Thurston County jury found Eric Boudreau guilty of brutally assaulting and murdering the child.
A 12-person jury found Boudreau guilty of second-degree murder, second-degree assault of a child and third-degree assault of a child on Thursday, Nov. 13, after roughly five hours of deliberations.
They also found Boudreau guilty of three aggravating factors — vulnerable victim, deliberate cruelty by a person in a position of trust, and injuries substantially exceeding the level of bodily harm necessary to satisfy the elements of the offense — that will add time to his sentence.
“The jury’s verdict reflects the seriousness of these crimes and the profound harm inflicted on an extremely vulnerable child,” the Thurston County Prosecutor's Office said in an official statement. “Our office remains committed to seeking justice for victims and holding offenders accountable, especially in cases involving the abuse of children who rely entirely on adults for their safety and care.”
Sentencing is scheduled for 9 a.m. on Dec. 12.
Boudreau, 34, of Lacey, was arrested and charged for the murder of Jace Alexander McDonald in March 2023 — four months after the baby died of blunt force injuries that he sustained while under Boudreau’s care on Nov. 11, 2022.
The King County Medical Examiner determined Jace’s cause of death was homicide.
Boudreau, having gotten little sleep the night before after performing with his band and arguing with a friend, testified that he fell asleep in his second-floor bedroom while babysitting Jace. He said he “woke up in hell,” finding Jace unresponsive and heavily bruised at the bottom of a 10-foot staircase.
Investigators and medical personnel, however, questioned Boudreau’s narrative due to the extent and locations of Jace’s injuries.
A medical examiner documented at least 115 external injuries on Jace’s body, including bruises, lacerations and abrasions. The medical examiner noted that number was a conservative estimate, as many of the injuries blended together.
Of particular concern were an adult human bite mark on Jace’s leg, an upper lip frenulum tear and deep bruising to his genitals, eyelids, bottoms of his feet and inside of his ears.
Internal injuries included two skull fractures, brain bleeding, abdominal bleeding and a neck injury.
“He could not have fallen down the stairs and caused all of those injuries,” said Deputy Prosecutor Jessica Shen, referencing testimony from medical personnel during her closing argument on Nov. 12.
The prosecution also noted that Boudreau made inconsistent statements to police, Jace’s parents and to the jury about the position he found Jace in. He initially said he found Jace face down at the bottom of the stairs on the other side of the baby gate, then said he found him up against the baby gate, then said he found his body twisted at an odd angle against the baby gate.
“That’s somebody who's scrambling to find something that makes sense so that nobody finds out what he did to Jace,” Shen said.
Boudreau reported that, immediately after finding Jace, he brought the child upstairs to the bedroom and called the child’s mother, Miranda Shaw, telling her to call 911.
Boudreau, Shaw and another woman were in a polyamorous relationship at the time. Boudreau and Shaw had been together for four months.
When asked why he called Shaw instead of calling 911 himself, Boudreau reportedly told police, “Jace is not my child. I’ve never had a kid before.”
Boudreau also later called himself Jace’s “stepfather” and a “grieving father.”
Prior to the incident, the prosecution said, Boudreau had been involved in some of Jace’s caretaking duties but had never been alone with him for more than 30 minutes.
He’d agreed to babysit Jace for four hours on Nov. 11, 2022, because Jace’s daycare was closed for Veterans Day and no one else was available to watch him.
Jace was reportedly coming down with a cold and was particularly fussy that day, his parents testified.
Jace’s father, who also lived in the house, reported hearing Boudreau tell Jace to “shut up” in a tone that made him uncomfortable, but left for work as usual out of fear that he would be fired if he was late.
He was later fired when he left work to go to the hospital, according to reporting by The Olympian.
Shaw and the other girlfriend reportedly tried contacting Boudreau multiple times throughout the day on Nov. 11, but didn’t get a response until Boudreau’s frantic call to Shaw at about 1:40 p.m. -– about 20 minutes before she was due to come home from work.
Shaw called 911 at Boudreau’s request, returned home and performed CPR on Jace until medics arrived.
Boudreau was reportedly performing CPR incorrectly on Jace — calling his name, cradling his head and blowing air into his face — when Shaw arrived and took over.
Medics reported that Jace was completely naked and was abnormally cold and damp, as if he had been doused in water and was drying. There was also water on the floor around him, and on clothes belonging to Boudreau that had been removed and thrown onto the bed.
The defense suggested that the water could have been saline spilled by responding medics.
Jace’s clothes, along with a bedsheet and a couple of bath towels, were later found in the bedroom’s walk-in closet, with Jace’s blood on them.
Boudreau had said he removed Jace’s shirt to better perform CPR, but was inconsistent in explaining why Jace’s diaper had been removed. He also said he’d removed the bedsheet because Jace had urinated on it.
Investigators later found blood stains on the carpet in various locations on the second-floor of the house, but notably found no blood on or at the bottom of the stairs.
The defense argued that the blood was from a nosebleed Jace had earlier that day. The prosecution argued that it was most likely from the upper lip frenulum tear and argued that Boudreau intentionally caused the injury.
Jace was taken to Providence St. Peter Hospital in Olympia and later airlifted to Harborview Medical Center in Olympia, where he died.
Defense attorney Kevin Griffin agreed with the prosecution that Jace’s injuries were extreme, but argued that they were intensified by a condition called trauma-induced coagulopathy (TIC), where blood doesn’t clot properly after a severe injury.
He argued that the family’s two goldendoodles possibly knocked Jace down the stairs after Jace’s 7-year-old brother left the bedroom door open when he stopped by the house to get a game console 90 minutes before Boudreau called Shaw.
The boy testified that he distinctly remembered closing the bedroom door, and that Jace appeared to be uninjured when saw him briefly from a distance.
Griffin argued that Jace likely fractured his skull in the fall, triggering TIC, and that the dogs could have trampled Jace at the bottom of the stairs to cause additional bruising.
“It seems like it had to be the perfect storm,” Griffin said.
Medical personnel largely ruled out that Jace had TIC, according to testimony cited by both the prosecution and the defense.
Medical personnel also testified that a toddler was unlikely to sustain a skull fracture from a fall down the stairs, and reported that Jace’s injuries were more consistent with being punched or hit.
“Any other explanation other than Mr. Boudreau inflicting them is not reasonable,” Shen said.
Shen also argued that Boudreau’s behavior after Jace’s death was indicative of someone who committed a crime.
He reportedly asked Shaw not to send detectives a video of Jace she’d taken the day before his death, saying evidence of Jace’s uninjured state would make him Boudreau “look bad,” and reportedly installed VPNs on their phones and removed smoke detectors because he believed police might be listening through them.
“These are the actions of someone who knows he did wrong, who knows that he murdered Jace,” Shen said.
Griffin argued that, while Jace’s death is undeniably Boudreau’s fault, Boudreau did not intentionally injure or murder Jace.
“He was supposed to be taking care of this child and just failed and this perfect storm of events happened,” Griffin said, adding that Boudreau’s only crime was not preventing Jace’s fall.
“It’s not murder. It’s disgusting, but it’s not murder,” Griffin said.
The jury had an option to consider a second-degree manslaughter conviction if they ruled out second-degree murder— though Griffin argued that Boudreau’s negligence didn’t rise to the level of criminality required for that charge to stick.
Shen argued that second-degree manslaughter is not applicable due to the extensive evidence indicating child abuse, rather than a mere failure to supervise.
“This wasn’t inaction. This was Mr. Boudreau taking action,” Shen said.
Boudreau’s trial began Oct. 20. He has been in custody at the Thurston County Jail without bail since his arrest in March 2023.
