A Missouri man is facing charges in connection with his infant son’s “violent” death, which he allegedly committed during a “fussy” crying spat, police say.
Adrian Horton, 21, of Parkville, is charged with first-degree endangering the welfare of a child with the death of a child after investigators from the Kansas City Police Department in Missouri determined that his son, Mateo Rideout, suffered fatal injuries in October 2024 “caused by violent trauma to the head, including acceleration and deceleration forces, which may or may not include shaking,” according to a probable cause statement filed last Friday, Aug. 1, in Platte
But that wasn’t all: Horton allegedly sexually assaulted an ex-lover outside a mall less than a year before his son died.
According to the probable cause statement, Horton was taken into custody on Monday, approximately eight months after his arrest for the alleged rape, after numerous attempts in police interviews to explain what happened to Mateo.
“Over the course of several hours, Adrian’s account of what occurred with [the child] changed several times,” police allege, noting that Horton initially claimed he was “patting” Mateo in a “pretty aggressive manner” because he was crying.
“At one point, Adrian advised that after he changed [the child’s] diaper, [Mateo] started to choke,” the probable cause statement states.
Horton allegedly claimed that he began performing CPR “the adult way” on the child before summoning Mateo’s mother for assistance. “I might have used a little more force than I should have,” he allegedly admitted to police.
The mother told investigators that Horton was “always frustrated or annoyed” whenever he had to do anything with their son, and that she had asked him to change the boy’s diaper after he started crying the night before his death.
“As Adrian got up, she heard him say in a frustrated tone, ‘Why you always crying bro?’ talking about [Mateo],” the probable cause statement says. Mateo’s mother later heard “loud patting” coming from the child’s room.
“When the patting noise ceased, she heard Adrian yell her name and for her to come to [Mateo’s] room,” the police tell us.
The mother claimed that she saw Horton holding Mateo “with a panicked look on his face” while the boy was “gasping for air.” She told authorities that Horton had not previously been abusive to their son, but that he had recently become “increasingly more violent,” according to the probable cause statement.
Horton told cops that he and the child’s mother “were having sex” the night he died when the infant “became fussy in his bassinet next to the bed,” according to the statement. He allegedly claimed Mateo’s “onesie” kept getting caught on his head while he was attempting to remove it, causing the child’s head to “jerk in a backward motion,” police say.
Horton stated that while changing Mateo’s diaper, he removed it and the baby began to “pee on him,” according to the probable cause statement. Horton allegedly told police he started playing with Mateo’s arms in a “orchestra conductor” motion while waiting for him to finish.
“He did not believe he was being too rough,” the probable cause statement reads, alleging that Mateo “spit up” moments later, prompting Horton to grab him “by his neck” and pat him on the back, according to police.
“When he didn’t get the result he wanted, Adrian advised he began to pat [the child] on the back in a pretty aggressive manner until spit up came out of his mouth,” according to the probable cause statement. “Adrian then observed [the child] to be gasping for air and yelled for [the mother] to come into the room.”
In the rape case, authorities say Horton sexually assaulted an ex-lover in December 2023 at the Zona Rosa shopping mall in Kansas City. According to the probable cause statement for the incident, he is accused of choking and attacking the victim while they were in a parked car after she repeatedly told him to stop.
Horton was allegedly linked to the rape via DNA testing and a sexual assault examination kit used on the victim. He was in jail on Tuesday on a $150,000 bond for rape but no bond for his son’s death.
