On tape: Man admits punching toddler

It was the second to last time that a Southampton man punched his girlfriend's toddler in the chest that probably killed the boy, the man explained in a videotaped confession played in Suffolk County Court on Friday.

"I hit him harder than I ever hit him," Pedro Jones Jr., 22, told Suffolk Assistant District Attorney Robert Biancavilla during their 87-minute videotaped conversation. The video was played during a pretrial hearing before Judge James Hudson to determine whether it and a written confession will be admissible at trial. Jones is charged with second-degree murder in the 18-month-old boy's death in August 2010 on the Shinnecock Nation reservation in Southampton.

During the video, Jones talked freely about his frustrations with Roy Jones III -- no relation -- and how he dealt with them.

"Most of the time I would punch him in the chest," Jones told Biancavilla, demonstrating with a jab. "He always cried after I hit him, but it's not like he was flying across the room. He would just tip over."

Jones estimated the boy weighed 35 pounds. When Biancavilla asked him his own height and weight, he said he was 6-foot-4 and 210 pounds.

Jones said he had tried to be a father figure since he had met the boy's mother, Vanessa Collins Jones, in a homeless shelter.

Things started to get rough in April 2010, he said. The boy always wanted his mother, who pampered him, Jones said.

"If he didn't listen, what did you do?" Biancavilla asked.

"I would beat him," Jones said. "I was just trying to get him to calm down."

By May, Jones said, "the hits got a little bit harder." He said his girlfriend, brother and both parents all told him not to hit the boy anymore. He said even Suffolk Child Protective Services advised against it after the boy cracked his skull in an incident Jones said he didn't cause. The agency took no other action, he said.

On the boy's last day he had been OK until his mother came home from work, only to leave to visit a cousin on the Shinnecock Reservation, Jones said. The boy was soon out of control, and Jones said he responded first by choking him and then punching him twice in the chest.

"I'm home every day with this kid," he said on the video. "I love him, but he wouldn't stop crying. I told him, 'Toughen up, man. Be a boy.' "