David VanderLeest appears virtually in Brown County court, June 30, 2025. PC: Fox 11 Online
GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — A man accused of aiding and abetting his son following the suspicious death of a 2-year-old child was bound over Tuesday for more court proceedings.
David VanderLeest, 48, is charged with obstructing an officer and aiding a felon in connection with the June 22 death of Leo Escalante on Green Bay’s east side. James VanderLeest, 21, is charged with reckless homicide.
During a preliminary hearing Tuesday, a detective with the Green Bay Police Department testified that he and David spoke on the phone on June 27. He said David made the call from a cabin in Florence County — the same one where David and James were arrested that same day.
“I received a phone call from David, but then he had put James on the line,” said GBPD Detective Craig Brey. “When I talked to him on the phone, I had asked him to turn James in because James did have a warrant for his arrest.”
Brey said David had obtained a cell phone, cash and credit card from someone he knew in a nursing home or assisted living facility in Green Bay, prior to fleeing the area. Prosecutors say the search history on that device included Google searches about brain swelling; Brown County public safety reports; Green Bay Flight for Life; wrongful death claims; causes of brain death; arrest warrants filed; lying to a cop, campgrounds, cabins and motels near Iron River; and an obituary for Escalante.
Just hours after speaking with Brey, the pair then purchased a new phone in Iron River, prosecutors say.
David’s defense attorney, John D’Angelo, argued David’s charges be reduced. He rebuked the prosecution’s allegations that David knew his son had committed a serious crime, such as reckless homicide.
“At that point when this occurred, the lie occurred, which is the obstruction charge, the child was not passed,” D’Angelo said. “It was more the concern about the bail jumping and the contact with the child’s mother that was the aiding.”
At the time he lied to the officers, he knew that the child fell down the stairs. That’s what James told him, that’s what James told him to say to the officers… He didn’t know that it was going to be a first-degree reckless, because at that point, the child wasn’t passed.
D’Angelo also referenced Brey’s testimony that David and James drove to the cabin in separate cars, and that David went to the cabin because he was concerned about his son being suicidal.
Ultimately, Brown County Court Commissioner Allison Ritchie found probable cause that a felony was committed and ordered David be bound over for further proceedings. His arraignment is scheduled for Sep. 22.
According to the criminal complaint, police responded to a home in the 100 block of Alpine Drive for a report of a child who fell down the steps and was not breathing. The home belongs to David. He was allowing Escalante’s mother and the child to stay at the home, despite there being a no-contact order in place between the woman and James.
David said he was home alone with Escalante when he left him to get a roll of toilet paper. When he returned, he found Escalante at the bottom of the steps, David claimed.
When police first talked to James, he said his father was the one with Escalante at the time of the incident.
But Escalante’s mother told police it was James who called her to say the child wasn’t breathing. She went to the home, where she found her son “limp” and unresponsive. She also said James wanted her to say it was David who was with the boy when the injuries happened. The mother called 911.
An officer asked the mother “if she could recall any other words he was saying and she explained James kept telling her, “I’m sorry” and that it was “an accident,”,” the complaint states.
Prosecutors confirmed Tuesday they do not believe David was involved in the incident that killed Escalante.
After Escalante’s death, authorities say the VanderLeests fled to a relative’s cabin in Florence County, where a SWAT team helped take them into custody after a standoff.
James admitted he was with the boy and then told police the same story as his father — that Escalante had fallen down the stairs. He repeatedly denied causing child’s injuries. When pressed, James told police they were not going to get a “fake confession,” the complaint states.
David told police James told him the same version of events about the stair fall.
Escalante was flown to Children’s Hospital in Milwaukee, where he was pronounced dead two days after his injuries occurred. According to the autopsy:
There were blunt force injuries to the head-multiple scalp and facial contusions; deep scalp and subgaleal hemorrhages; subdural hematoma; cerebral edema; scattered contusion of the extremities; three contusions of the trunk; two patterned contusions of the upper extremities.
The injuries were not consistent with a fall down the stairs, a doctor told police.
Family of Escalante says James is the ex-boyfriend of Escalante’s mother. However, he is not Escalante’s father.
At previous court hearings, both VanderLeests disputed the account offered by police and prosecutors.
James returns to court Aug. 14 for a status conference.
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