VENTURA : Man Who Blinded Son Is Jailed Again

A Ventura man who just completed a one-year jail sentence for blinding his infant son was ordered back to jail Tuesday for allegedly violating his probation.

Don Ray Boyd, 22, was sentenced to a year in jail in July for shaking his infant son, Jacob Payne, so violently that the retinas of the child’s eyes became detached from the optic nerve, causing permanent blindness. Boyd told investigators that he shook the 3-month-old child because he wouldn’t stop crying.

Boyd had been in custody since mid-March, and with time off for good behavior, he completed the jail sentence Nov. 12. But as a condition of probation, he was ordered to stay away from children except in the presence of a responsible adult.

On Tuesday, his probation officer, Joseph Hickerson, told Superior Court Judge Allan L. Steele that Boyd had appeared at the probation office with his girlfriend and her 2-year-old daughter. In court papers, Hickerson questioned whether the woman was a responsible adult. He also charged that Boyd had failed to keep him informed of where he was living.

Deputy Public Defender Susan Olson argued that Boyd has not been given time to find a place to live. She said the court could simply order Boyd to stay away from the 2-year-old. She noted that Boyd kept an appointment with Hickerson last week and showed up for the hearing Tuesday.

But Steele said he was worried about Boyd’s contact with the child and ordered him held without bail pending a hearing Friday.

Boyd’s injured son, now 15 months old, is living in a foster home and is undergoing physical therapy.