Appeals court upholds murder conviction in 2021 death of toddler at Farmington Hills motel

The Michigan Court of Appeals has upheld the convictions of a man serving life in prison for the death of his young son, whose body was found in a Farmington Hills motel room in 2021.

Isaias Aurelio Porras, 36, was convicted by an Oakland County Circuit Court jury of first-degree felony murder and first-degree child abuse at the end of a 2024 trial, The Oakland Press reported. He was sentenced to life in prison for murder and 15 to 70 years for child abuse, according to the appeals court.

A three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals, Judges Murray, Boonstra and Riordan, affirmed the convictions in an unpublished opinion issued Thursday, Oct. 15 (Docket No. 374913).

The case

Farmington Hills police doing a welfare check at the Motel 6 on Grand River Avenue found the boy's body under a pile of blankets on Oct. 3, 2021, the Oakland Press reported. The appeals court opinion says the boy was 14 months old; the Oakland Press reported he was 15 months old. The opinion says an autopsy found the cause of death was a head injury that caused bleeding around the brain, and the death was ruled a homicide.

The child's mother, Amanda Jajou, was also charged. She pleaded no contest to second-degree murder and accessory after the fact to a felony and is serving 15 to 60 years in prison, according to the Oakland Press.

The appeal

Porras argued that his statements to police and videos of two interviews with detectives violated his right against self-incrimination and should not have been allowed at trial.

The judges disagreed. They found that statements Porras made to an officer in a patrol car were volunteered, not the result of questioning. As for the detective interviews, the panel said Porras gave up that argument when his trial lawyer agreed to let the videos be played. The opinion also notes that a detective read Porras his rights, which he said he understood, and that after about 10 minutes of going back and forth about whether to talk to a lawyer first, he chose to waive his right to counsel and speak with detectives.

Porras also argued his trial lawyer was ineffective for not trying to suppress the statements. The panel rejected that too. "Decisions regarding what evidence to present are presumed to be a matter of trial strategy," the opinion says. "Here, the admission of the videos enabled trial counsel to argue against the elements of defendant's charged offenses without defendant testifying."

Porras is held at the Lakeland Correctional Facility in Coldwater, the Oakland Press reported. It has not been reported whether he will ask the Michigan Supreme Court to hear the case.

The Journal does not name minors, including crime victims.

This story uses reporting from The Oakland Press and the Michigan Court of Appeals opinion in People v. Porras.