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Content warning: This article contains graphic descriptions of child murder. Please take care while reading.
An Alaska mother has been charged with murdering her son in Fairbanks last month. Police say after she did it, she called the boy’s father and told him, “Please don’t freak out. We don’t have a son no more,” according to the woman’s criminal complaint, viewed by Law & Crime.
According to Fairbanks police, Cedar Sarten, 43, called 911 around 10 a.m. on Oct 14 and told them her son was dead. When police arrived, they found 5-year-old Robert “Bodhi” J. Gagner-Sarten, Cedar’s son, deceased in his bed from an apparent homicide. According to a Fairbanks police update, in the initial 911 call, Cedar said someone had “harmed” her son and he was “definitely dead.” She said she last saw him alive between 1 and 2 a.m. and that she tried to call 911 the night before, but she said the call “never went through.”
When police arrived at Cedar’s home, they observed lacerations on her wrist, forearms, head, and neck, which were later determined to be self-inflicted. Cedar was treated at a Fairbanks hospital for life-threatening injuries, and Bodhi’s cause of death was determined to be blunt-force trauma to the head with stab wound injuries.
Police said a 20-pound kettlebell weight with blood on it was found near the boy’s bed, there was a considerable amount of blood in the apartment, and two knives were found inside his room. There were no signs of forced entry. Autopsy details suggested the stab wounds were inflicted postmortem.
“We don’t have a son no more”
Fairbanks Public Information Officer Teal Soden told Law & Crime that before she called the police, but after she murdered her son, Cedar called the boy’s father, Robert Gagner, multiple times and left voice messages, including, “Please don’t freak out, we don’t have a son no more,” and, “Robert, this is really bad you seriously need to come over here right now.” Another voicemail said, “Robert, I’m not playing. I couldn’t save our son. They did this to us.”
Cedar called Gagner again while she was in the hospital being treated for her self-inflicted injuries. “I know you’re mad as hell at me ’cause he died on my watch. I called you, okay. I called you. I knew something was wrong. I’m not blaming you. I’m just saying,” the message said. It’s unclear where Gagner was or why he didn’t answer when the calls were made.
A GoFundMe page established to help Bodhi’s family pay for funeral expenses says, “Robert, Bodhi’s father, and his fiancé Jenn are absolutely and unimaginably devastated. They are going to be laying Bodhi to rest in the village of Ruby so that he may be alongside his grandfather and have a beautiful view of the Yukon River.”
Cedar Sarten had been “acting differently”
According to Cedar’s criminal complaint, neighbors also said she had been “acting differently” in the days leading up to Bodhi’s death, and when Gagner dropped his son off at Sarten’s home that same day, “the Defendant’s behavior seemed off,” the complaint said. She also has a criminal record, including a 2022 conviction for reckless endangerment involving Bodhi. Cedar grabbed and twisted Bodhi’s head when he was only 16 months old, according to the previous conviction.
“This is definitely a rare type of case for us,” Public Information Officer Teal Soden told Law & Crime. “It is much more horrific than what our officers usually deal with. Of course, responding to a dead child in any circumstance is very difficult and tragic, but in a case where they’ve been murdered like this, it’s even more so.”