A Riley County Judge has dismissed without prejudice a first-degree murder charge against a Manhattan man accused in the 2018 death of his former girlfriend’s infant son.
Online court records show the motion to dismiss was filed Friday by Riley County Attorney Barry Wilkerson and signed by Chief Judge Grant Bannister. This comes after two mistrials against 25-year-old D’Khari Lyons, who has maintained his innocence throughout. He is no longer in custody.
Lyons was the only person home when 2-month-old Michael Calvert Jr. sustained life-threatening injuries in November 2018. The boy’s mother had left the child in Lyons’ care briefly while she took her other kids to school. Calvert Jr. died days later at a hospital. The official cause of death was ruled to be blunt force or abusive head trauma.
A motion to dismiss without prejudice means the state can still refile charges in the future.
