Ark. man pleads guilty to drowning 5-year-old boy in toilet and burying him under floorboards

MARIANNA, Ark. (TCN) -- A judge sentenced a 34-year-old man to six decades in prison for drowning his girlfriend’s 5-year-old son in the toilet and burning her daughter.

The Arkansas Department of Public Safety announced Thursday, July 18, that Nathan Bridges pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and first-degree battery in connection with the death of Blu Rolland. Following his plea, he was sentenced to 60 years in the Arkansas Department of Corrections. Bridge’s girlfriend and Rolland’s mother, Ashley Rolland, is awaiting trial for capital murder, two counts of permitting child abuse, abuse of a corpse, tampering with physical evidence, endangering the welfare of a minor, and battery.

On Dec. 16, 2022, the Lee County Sheriff’s Office responded to a home in Moro after someone called to report they found a child’s body.

According to the criminal complaint, Ashley Rolland’s mother called the Lee County Sheriff’s Office to conduct a civil standby as she went to pick up the two children from Rolland’s house. Rolland reportedly initially claimed Blu Rolland wasn’t home. The mother saw Rolland’s 6-year-old daughter had scabbing on her head, which Rolland claimed was from an allergic reaction. The girl was taken to a hospital for what ended up being severe burns.

The mother contacted the sheriff’s office again because Rolland reportedly told her father that Blu Rolland was dead inside the house. Deputies returned to the home and noticed freshly nailed floorboards with "disturbed earth underneath." They removed the boards and dug until they discovered children’s flip-flops and a blanket, noting there was a "pungent odor of decay."

They then called in Arkansas State Police to take over the case.

Rolland told someone else that her son "had come out of the bathroom with his face/body swelling and foaming at the mouth before collapsing and dying." She reportedly buried him under the floor because she "did not know what to do."

Investigators executed a search warrant at the house and discovered a small child’s body "wrapped in multiple layers of plastic bags."

Rolland reportedly told investigators that Blu Rolland died Sept. 9, 2022. She claimed the child "angered her boyfriend, Nathan Bridges, by biting his finger" when Bridges put it in the boy’s mouth. Bridges brought Blu Rolland to the bathroom and "as punishment, repeatedly placed [Blu’s] head in the water-filled toilet until he drowned him."

Once the boy died, Bridges cut a hole in the wood floorboards and buried him.

Rolland claimed Bridges burned her daughter by placing her body under hot water in the bath as punishment for different behavioral issues.

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