Steven Heggie Jr. said his son, Messiah, was a “gift from God.”

Heggie said becoming a father instantly changed his life and gave him purpose.

“I never knew I could love anyone as much as I loved my boy,” Heggie said on Tuesday in the Clarence M. Mitchell Jr. Courthouse in Baltimore.

But, he added, “I feel like I failed Messiah. It was my job to protect him.”

On Oct. 27, 2023, Heggie’s father, Steven Heggie Sr., watched the boy at his apartment on West Cold Spring Lane after snorting heroin. They later took a nap together.

When Heggie Sr. woke up, the child was unresponsive. Messiah was taken to Sinai Hospital and later pronounced dead. He was 13 months old.

The Maryland Office of the Chief Medical Examiner determined that he died of drug toxicity. The manner of death was homicide.

Baltimore Circuit Judge John Addison Howard later ordered Heggie Sr., 62, of Northwest Baltimore, to serve the maximum sentence under a plea agreement for involuntary manslaughter: six years in prison. He must also spend three years on probation.

“The defendant’s problems with controlled dangerous substances would not appear to the court to be a mitigating factor or an excuse in any way, shape or form for what happened,” Howard said.

Messiah should be 3 years old, talking, running and learning his letters, numbers and colors, Assistant State’s Attorney Jennifer McAllister said.

His parents, she said, paid Heggie Sr. to provide child care. They’ve now been “sentenced to a lifetime of what-ifs.”

McAllister alleged that Heggie Sr. knew that his grandson was dead and failed to call for help. “He allowed his son to walk into that room and find his son dead,” she said. “That’s about as heartless as you can get.”

But Assistant Public Defender Robert Cohen, one of Heggie Sr.’s attorneys, disputed that’s what happened and noted that his client also experienced the loss of a loved one.

He did not intend for his grandson to die, Cohen said.

“This is a terrible tragedy for the entire family,” Cohen said. “He’s always owned up to what he did, and what he failed to do.”

Cohen said he was “terribly concerned” that his client lacked the “physical ability to serve time.” That’s because he’s been hospitalized seven times since he pleaded guilty last year and suffers from several chronic illnesses.

Heggie Sr. said he failed his responsibilities as a grandfather, adding there was nothing he could do to make amends. He said he could not put the tragedy into words.

“I, too, lost Messiah,” he said. “In doing so, I lost my entire family.”

The judge later rejected his requests to report to prison at a later date and serve the sentence on home detention.

The grandfather then put his head down on the table and sobbed.