Hodgeman County sheriff’s deputy charged with murder, child abuse in son’s death

A sheriff’s deputy in Hodgeman County has been charged with first-degree murder and child abuse in the death of his 2-month-old son.

Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt said Deputy Kody Lee Hanson, 30, of Jetmore, is scheduled to appear in Hodgeman County District Court on Monday. He is accused in a criminal complaint of killing the boy on April 7 while committing a felony crime, listed in the document as child abuse.

In the child abuse count, Hanson is accused of torturing or cruelly beating or shaking his son, “which resulted in great bodily harm.” The child died at a Wichita hospital, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation said in a news release last week.

According to his biography on the Hodgeman County sheriff’s website, he joined the department in 2014, after a career as a police officer in Goodland. He is a 10-year veteran of the Kansas Army National Guard and served in Iraq from 2006 to 2007. He was also deployed to Djibouti, a country in eastern Africa, in 2010.

Hanson was arrested by the KBI and the Hodgeman County Sheriff’s Office and booked into the Ford County Detention Center on April 16. He is being held in lieu of $250,000, Schmidt said.

Contributing: Matt Riedl of The Eagle

This story was originally published April 24, 2015 at 5:57 PM with the headline "Hodgeman County sheriff’s deputy charged with murder, child abuse in son’s death."