Five years after 2-year-old Jamir Jones died in what was initially reported as a bathtub drowning, the Columbus man who was caring for him has been sentenced to 13 to 18½ years in prison. Dioblis Williams, now 26, pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and endangering children in Franklin County Common Pleas Court.
Judge Kim Brown imposed the sentence Monday after Williams entered his guilty pleas, according to WBNS. Williams had initially been charged with murder and endangering children in connection with the toddler’s death.
The case resurfaced publicly in August 2025, when Columbus police charged Williams after years of investigation. Hoodline previously reported that the death had first been treated as a possible drowning, but an autopsy later found evidence of blunt-force trauma.
Williams was arrested in Framingham, Massachusetts, on Aug. 27, 2025, after the U.S. Marshals Service said its fugitive task force tracked him there. He was held as a fugitive from justice while awaiting extradition to Ohio, according to the U.S. Marshals Service.
What Happened To Jamir Jones
According to court documents described by 10TV, Columbus police responded on March 25, 2020, to an apartment in the 2200 block of Holt Avenue after receiving a report of a drowning. Williams had been babysitting his girlfriend’s son while the boy’s mother was at work and had placed Jamir in a bathtub unsupervised.
Jamir was found unconscious, taken to Nationwide Children’s Hospital and later pronounced dead. Court records said an autopsy determined he had not drowned and instead suffered blunt-force trauma to his abdomen, along with numerous bruises to his stomach, head and neck.
Williams’ sentence brings a criminal case that began with a reported drowning and later became a homicide investigation to its current endpoint: an indefinite prison term with a 13-year minimum and an 18½-year maximum.
