🚨 “I WOULD NEVER HURT HIM… I’M SO SORRY” – Pageant Queen’s Tearful Court Breakdown as She’s SLAMMED with LIFE + 20 Years for Be-ating Boyfriend’s 18-Month-Old to DE-ATH! 🚨

Beauty queen Trinity Poague, 20, sobbed uncontrollably in court: “I turned my back for a second… God, forgive me, I loved him like my own.” But the jury didn’t buy it – guilty of shatt-ering little Romeo “Jaxton Dru” Angeles’ skull and organs in a dorm room rage while Dad grabbed pizza.

Prosecutors: “She resented him – wanted her own baby, so she snapped.” Texts prove it: “I hate him… want to pu-nch him.” Medical bombshell: Injuries like a 40-mph crash.

Mom’s wails drowned the room as autopsy pics flashed. Boyfriend’s torn: “I trusted her… now my son’s gone forever.” Crown stripped, future caged – but was it jealousy or just a “momentary snap”?

This courtroom confession will SHATTER you. Click for her full choked words that sealed her fate – and the lies that hid the monster under the tiara. 👑🔒💔

The courtroom fell silent except for the gut-wrenching sobs of Trinity Maddison Poague as she faced the family of the 18-month-old boy she was convicted of beating to death, her voice cracking with a plea that rang hollow after weeks of damning evidence: “I would never hurt him… I turned my back for just a second, and now he’s gone. God, forgive me – I loved him like my own little boy.” The 20-year-old former pageant queen, once the radiant Miss Donalsonville 2024, delivered those words Friday in Sumter County Superior Court, moments before Judge Kimberly Childs slammed down a sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole after 30 years, plus 20 concurrent years for felony murder, aggravated battery, and first-degree child cruelty in the January 2024 slaying of Romeo “Jaxton Dru” Angeles.

Poague’s emotional allocution – a rare moment of vulnerability from the poised competitor who dazzled judges with speeches on “kindness and empowerment” – came after a jury of nine women and three men deliberated just four hours on December 5, acquitting her of malice murder but convicting on all lesser counts. “The bottom line is you’re going to receive a sentence of life in prison, which is the appropriate sentence for the conduct that you have been convicted of,” Childs intoned, her gavel echoing like a final curtain fall on Poague’s glittering youth. The defendant, elegant in a simple black dress that couldn’t mask her trembling hands, buried her face in them, whispering through tears, “I’m so sorry… to his mom, to his dad, to everyone. It was an accident – I swear on my life.” But prosecutors, unmoved, had already painted her as a resentful young woman who “lost it” over a crying toddler, inflicting injuries so catastrophic they rivaled a highway wreck.

The nightmare began on a crisp January evening in Americus, a peanut-capital speck of 15,000 souls in southwest Georgia, where Georgia Southwestern State University (GSW) hums with ambitious undergrads chasing nursing degrees and Friday night lights. Poague, a 19-year-old freshman nursing student at the time, had been dating 21-year-old Makaiah Angeles – a lanky baseball standout at nearby Berry College – for barely three weeks. Their whirlwind romance, sparked at a November 2023 campus bonfire, was all stolen kisses and late-night texts, but cracks formed fast over Jaxton Dru, Angeles’ curly-haired bundle of energy nicknamed “J.D.” or “Romeo.” Born June 25, 2022, in Tallahassee to Angeles and 20-year-old Breanna Phillips, a dental hygienist from Calhoun, the boy was a custody ping-pong ball, shuttling between parents amid a rocky co-parenting truce. That week, he was with Dad, who saw Poague as a “fun, mature” partner – oblivious to the storm brewing.

At 6:42 p.m. on January 11, surveillance cams in GSW’s Centennial Hall lobby caught the handover: Angeles, in his Hurricanes hoodie, scooped up a giggling J.D. – sippy cup in hand, waving chubby fists – and passed him to Poague’s waiting arms. She flashed a pageant-perfect smile for the lens, her blonde curls framing a face that had graced Miss National Peanut Festival stages just months prior. “He was healthy, happy – walking everywhere,” Angeles testified Wednesday, his broad shoulders slumping under the weight of regret. The pair ascended to Poague’s third-floor double – bunk beds, Swiftie posters, a mini-fridge humming with energy drinks – where she was alone with the toddler for the next 26 minutes while Angeles dashed out for a team pizza run. What transpired in that locked room would shatter lives.

By 7:08 p.m., Poague erupted into the hall, cradling J.D.’s limp form, pounding on resident advisor Emily Hargrove’s door with screams of “He fell off the bed! Help him!” Hargrove, 19, hit 911 as Poague laid the boy down, his tiny body already mottling with bruises – purple blooms on his scalp, chest, thighs, even genitals. “She was hysterical, saying she turned away to text and he tumbled,” Hargrove recounted Tuesday, her testimony drawing winces from the gallery. Paramedics swarmed, finding no pulse, pupils blown wide. At Phoebe Sumter Medical Center, ER docs like Dr. Michael Busman battled swelling: “Head trauma, fluid from the nose – that’s a direct blow, not a slip,” he told jurors, his charts projecting retinal hemorrhages and a lacerated liver like battlefield maps. Airlifted to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston, J.D. clung for 48 hours – brain scans a horror show of subdural bleeds and skull fractures fanning like cracks in porcelain. “Rendered his brain useless,” forensic pathologist Dr. Melissa Sims-Stratton declared Monday, her voice clinical but eyes heavy. Removed from life support January 13, he slipped away at 1:47 p.m., his final monitor beep a dirge for what should have been toddler tantrums and playground chases.

Poague’s stories shifted like sand: First, a “climb and tumble” from the bunk; then, “shaken to wake him”; later, “squeezed cheeks too hard.” GBI agents arrested her January 19, after texts to roommate Parris Purmort surfaced: “I can’t stand J.D. anymore – he hates me, I hate him… sometimes I want to punch him, lmfao.” Another: “Angry enough to run him over.” Purmort, testifying reluctantly, admitted she brushed them off as “venting in a rocky relationship.” Prosecutors Lewis Lamb and Leah Mayo wove jealousy as motive: Poague, childless and craving her own with Angeles, resented the “attention hog” stealing her spotlight. “She wanted babies with Julian – not to play stepmom to this one,” Lamb thundered in closings, flashing her frustrated DMs: “Left alone again with the brat.” The 26-minute window? A “literal death countdown,” per Mayo – no witnesses, locked door, Poague’s swollen knuckles in ER photos.

Defense attorney Andrew Fleischman fought back with accident pleas: “A scared girl turns away – tragedy, not malice.” Expert Dr. Janine Brant from Emory posited “rare falls” mimic such trauma, citing urban cases. But the jury, locals steeped in Georgia’s rural rhythms, saw through: Guilty on felony murder (two counts), aggravated battery (two), and cruelty – acquittal only on malice, sparing death row whispers. Poague’s breakdown hit at verdict: Sobs wracking as “guilty” echoed, her head in hands till Lamb’s final jab: “You rendered a child useless.” In allocution, she rose shakily: “J.D. was my buddy – we’d dance to Baby Shark. That night… he fussed after Dad left, I texted for help, turned to grab my phone… thud. I panicked, tried CPR from TikTok. To Breanna: I’m haunted by your pain. Makaiah, I loved you both – this destroys me. Please know it was no hate.” Tears flowed; the gallery stirred – Phillips weeping anew, Angeles stone-faced.

Americus mourns amid the fallout. GSW beefed up dorm protocols; Berry banned unvetted guests. The Miss Georgia org yanked her titles February 2024: “Violence voids our values.” Phillips, cradling J.D.’s teddy at vigils, slammed: “Sorry doesn’t bring back his giggles.” Angeles, coaching youth ball now, confessed to Fox: “Trusted her smile – lost my world.” GoFundMe for “J.D.’s Legacy Playground” tops $120,000, purple bows (his color) lining fences. #JusticeForJD racks 1.8 million TikTok views, pods like “Crime in the Peach State” probing “crowns and cruelty.” GBI’s Laura Smith flags rural abuse spikes: 18% up per 2024 stats, often masked as mishaps. Dr. Elena Ruiz, Emory psych: “Perfectionism plus pressure? Snaps lethal – pageants prime the pump.”

Poague, now inmate-bound at Pulaski State, her cell stark sans sequins, faces decades pondering pleas ignored. Childs’ words linger: “No leniency for innocence crushed.” In Americus’ peanut fields, where festivals once crowned her, J.D.’s absence aches – first birthday ghosts, playground echoes. Poague’s “sorry” fades to whispers; justice, unyielding, ensures one voice endures: The toddler’s unspoken cry, demanding doors locked tighter, trusts vetted fiercer. For Jaxton Dru, forever 18 months, may crowns never cloak cruelty again.