Syracuse, NY -- An emotional Sam Adams spoke in a small courtroom Tuesday at the sentencing for her foster son’s killer - the little boy’s own dad.

Rykelan Brown, 4, was killed by his father only two months after Cortland County authorities pulled him away from Adams’ house and placed him with his biological father.

The trauma of Rykelan’s death resonated in Judge Mary Anne Doherty’s courtroom, as Joshua Emmons was sentenced to 25 years in prison for beating the boy to death in March 2024 in his DeWitt home.

“This is about a little boy who must have been so scared and confused and lonely, who was left to wonder why the parents he’d known nearly his entire life were suddenly missing,” Adams said. “It is impossible to articulate the agony I feel when I imagine Rykelan lying in an unfami

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