Man who overdosed in home with a dead 4-year found inside to stand trial for murder

A Beaumont man accused of causing the death of his girlfriend's 4-year-old daughter, whose remains were found in an apartment with him and the woman after they had overdosed on drugs, must stand trial for murder and other charges, a judge ruled on Friday.

Tyler Lawrence Finley, 28, was arrested in 2020 following a Beaumont Police Department investigation.

At the end of a preliminary hearing Friday, Riverside County Superior Court Judge Valerie Navarro found there was sufficient evidence to bound Finely over for trial on the murder count, as well as child abuse and a sentence-enhancing allegation of inflicting great bodily injury or death on a minor.

The hearing was held at the Riverside Hall of Justice, but the judge ordered the case returned to the Banning Justice Center for the post-preliminary hearing arraignment, slated for Sept. 19.

Finley is being held without bail at the Byrd Detention Center in Murrieta.   

According to Beaumont police, on the afternoon of Dec. 16, 2020, officers and paramedics went to Finley's apartment in the 800 block of East Sixth Street, near Palm Avenue, after receiving reports of an occupant in medical distress.

First responders found the dead girl, whose name was not released, as well as Finley and the woman, 24-year-old Cheyenne Blackerby, who were unconscious and near death from an overdose on unspecified drugs, police said.   

She and Finley were taken to nearby San Gorgonio Memorial Hospital, where Blackerby later died. The defendant staged a recovery, after which he was booked into jail.

No other details were disclosed, including the exact cause of the victim's death.

Finley has no documented prior felony convictions in Riverside County.