A Jacksonville man has been sentenced to 20 years in state prison in connection with the overdose death of his infant son, after pleading guilty to aggravated manslaughter of a child. Karl Brunswick, who was 48 at the time of the 2024 incident, is now headed to prison following the death of his son, who was found unresponsive in a car on San Juan Avenue.
According to First Coast News, the sentence was handed down following Brunswick's guilty plea, an outcome attributed to the Office of State Attorney Melissa Nelson. Jacksonville Sheriff's Office officers responded to a report of an unresponsive child on San Juan Avenue in March 2024, the outlet reported, and the child, identified elsewhere as 1-year-old Aiden, was taken to Wolfson Children's Hospital, where he later died.
A witness told police that they were in Brunswick's car when everyone fell asleep, waking later to find the child unresponsive, per the same First Coast News account. A separate report from Yahoo News adds detail to that account, stating that a woman told police she, Brunswick and the child had all fallen asleep in the car together before waking to find Aiden unresponsive. That report says Aiden was taken by the Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department to Wolfson Children's Hospital, where he was later pronounced dead.
Cocaine Found in Vehicle, Overdose Confirmed
The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office found cocaine in Brunswick's vehicle in 2024, the First Coast News report states. The Medical Examiner's Office determined that Brunswick's son died of an overdose, according to the seed report; Yahoo's earlier account similarly said the Medical Examiner's Office determined the child's death to be an overdose.
The two outlets differ on the name of the apartment complex where the car was parked. News4JAX reported in 2024 that the group fell asleep in a car in the parking lot of the Sampson Apartments in Hyde Park and identified the child as Aiden, while Yahoo's report referred to the location as the Samson Apartments at 6455 San Juan Avenue. The discrepancy in spelling has not been independently resolved.
Part of a Troubling Pattern, Experts Say
Aiden's case was one of several child overdose incidents that drew attention from Jacksonville authorities and child-safety experts in 2024. News4JAX reported that nearly 800 Florida children went to the hospital after ingesting marijuana edibles, citing a Drug Enforcement Administration threat assessment, and a Florida Poison Control spokesperson told the station the state was fielding more than one call a day involving children six and under.
Tom Hackney, a crime and safety analyst for the station, said at the time that reports of children overdosing on drugs were becoming too frequent. The same News4JAX report noted a separate case in which a Jacksonville Sheriff's Office officer saved the life of an unresponsive 7-month-old who suffered a fentanyl overdose on June 5, 2024.
Another Jacksonville Father Sentenced in Child's Death
Brunswick's sentencing comes roughly a year after another Jacksonville father, Justin Golden, was sentenced to 30 years in Florida State Prison after pleading guilty to running over and killing his 8-month-old son. First Coast News reported that the child was in the car during an argument with the boy's mother, and police said that incident happened on the morning of Jan. 25, 2025, near McDuff Avenue and Lenox Avenue.
Florida's statutes list a provision in Chapter 782 titled Manslaughter; aggravated manslaughter of an elderly person or disabled adult; aggravated manslaughter of a child, according to the Florida Legislature. The evidence available does not detail how that provision was applied in Brunswick's case, nor does it include further information about the sentencing hearing itself.
