Wife: Send Wallace home for birth

• The wife of a Muncie man charged in their infant’s death on Monday urged a judge to release him.
• Cory Wallace, facing five felony charges in his son’s February death, is held under a $180,000 bond.
• His wife, Sheryl, said she wanted him released to help her through the birth of their second child.
• Chief Trial Deputy Eric Hoffman suggested Wallace poses a danger to his unborn child, due Sept. 4.

MUNCIE – The wife of a man charged in the February death of their infant son wants him released from jail to help her through the birth of another child.

Cory Wallace, 23, now of Indianapolis, faces five felony charges — including neglect of a dependent resulting in death and arson — in the Feb. 10 death of his 5-month-old son, Jensen.

Arrested Aug. 7, Wallace is being held in the Delaware County jail under a $180,000 bond, awaiting a Jan. 25 trial.

At a Monday hearing, public defender Ron Smith and his client’s 20-year-old wife, Sheryl, urged Delaware Circuit Court 1 Judge Marianne Vorhees to reduce Wallace’s bond to $50,000.

Sheryl Wallace, due to give birth to the couple’s second child on Sept. 4, said she wanted her spouse released “because he’s my husband.” She also told the judge she needed the defendant’s “help and support.”

Sheryl Wallace lives with her husband’s mother and grandfather.

Cory Wallace’s mother told the judge she didn’t believe her son was “a danger to be at home.”

City police said Wallace admitted that he dropped Jensen onto a hardwood floor in the family’s Meeker Avenue home and failed to seek medical attention for the baby, instead placing the boy in a playpen.

After he found his son dead a few hours later, Wallace allegedly set fires in the baby’s bedroom in a bid to hide the cause of the infant’s death.

An autopsy showed evidence of abuse, including broken ribs and cuts and abrasions, court documents allege.

Three weeks before Jensen’s death, a Marion County judge placed Cory Wallace on home detention after he pleaded guilty to a neglect charge that stemmed from injuries suffered in 2012 by another infant he had fathered.

Delaware County Prosecutor Jeffrey Arnold and his chief trial deputy, Eric Hoffman, urged Vorhees to leave Wallace’s bond at $180,000.

“Do I think he poses a risk to the community, particularly to his child that’s going to be born here shortly?” Hoffman asked. “Absolutely.”

Hoffman noted that if convicted, Wallace faces a prison term exceeding 75 years, and called the defendant “essentially a transient who uproots and moves from here to there.”

Public defender Smith maintained there was “no evidence” his client was a “flight risk.”

Judge Vorhees took the request for a bond reduction under advisement and is expected to issue a ruling this week.

Contact news reporter Douglas Walker at (765) 213-5851. You can also follow him on Twitter @DouglasWalkerSP.