Branford man headed to prison for beating 12-year-old son to death, attempting to kill daughter
A Branford man who beat his 12-year-old son to death with a baseball bat and tried to kill his teenage daughter was sentenced to 60 years in prison on Monday.
Anthony Esposito Jr. was taken into custody on May 1, 2025, shortly after police found his son, Anthony P. Esposito dead inside the family’s condo on Hemlock Road.
Prosecutors said Esposito Jr. admitted to killing his son because he was being disrespectful. After beating him to death, Esposito Jr. left the condo and went to the town green to pick up his 16-year-old daughter.
After they arrived home, the daughter asked where her brother was, and he told her the boy was downstairs in the basement. He followed her to the staircase and pushed her down to where her brother’s body was, according to prosecutors.
Esposito Jr. said if he could have reached the bat, he would have killed his daughter as well. She was able to escape the basement.
He pleaded guilty to murder and attempted murder in April.
On Monday, a judge sentenced Esposito Jr. to 40 years for his son’s murder and another 20 years for the attempted murder of his daughter, to serve consecutively. That makes the total effective sentence 60 years.
During the sentencing, the judge sait it was “one of the worst cases the Court has seen.”
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