Mathew Ponomarenko: Parma Father Who Killed 5-Year-Old Son with Baseball Bat Dies by Suicide in Prison

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In November of 2023, Matthew Ponomarenko was sentenced to life in prison with his first chance at parole after 45 years for the brutal killing of his 5-year-old son. 

That case began on March 25, 2021, inside the family’s home on Russell Avenue near West 45th Street in Parma. 

Jax Ponomarenko 


That fateful day, Ponomarenko struck his son Jax multiple times with a baseball bat in the living room, then called 911 himself. 

He told the dispatcher he had just killed his son and that he had been hearing voices, as per Cleveland 19 News.

Parma police officers arrived shortly after the call, and Ponomarenko was arrested in the front yard. 

When they stepped inside, they found the little boy lying with massive blunt force injuries to his head and face. Sadly, Jax was pronounced dead at the scene. 

Relatives would later share that Jax was an amazing child who had autism and had learned to use a tablet to communicate.

Matthew Ponomarenko later pleaded guilty in a Cuyahoga County courtroom to one count of aggravated murder, one count of kidnapping, and one count of endangering children, and County Prosecutor Michael C. O’Malley announced his sentence in 2023.

After Ponomarenko began serving his life sentence, his family wrote letters to a judge asking for more mental health care inside the prison system. 

In July of 2025, one of those letters came directly from Jax’s mother and it read: “Maybe if someone listened to Matt back then, I would still have my son. He needs help. He needs people to listen,” she wrote. 

Before the tragedy, Mathew Ponomarenko had a long history of mental issues and he had reportedly been on medications which he stopped taking just weeks before the incident, as seen in this documentary on this case.

The family declined to do formal interviews but told 19 News they believed he was not getting the treatment he required while incarcerated.

Mathew Ponomarenko 


Before the courts could address any of those concerns, Ponomarenko took a legal step of his own. In November of 2025, he filed a petition to vacate his guilty plea, arguing that he suffered from a mental illness and did not fully understand what was happening when he signed the deal. 

The courts never got the chance to issue a ruling on that request because on December 7, 2025, Matthew Ponomarenko died at the Correctional Reception Center in Orient, Ohio. 

A spokesperson for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections confirmed the death was an apparent suicide and said the official cause would be determined once the death certificate was received. 

The agency added that the incident is under review, which is standard procedure after any incarcerated person’s death. The life term handed down for the killing of his young son had come to an end inside the state prison.

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