BOSTON -- A foster mother is behind bars after being charged with the murder of 4-year-old Dontel Jeffers in March.

NewsCenter 5's Pam Cross reported that Corinne Stephen, 24, was held on $100,000 cash bail.

The prosecutor alleged that Dontel had nail marks on his face, a black eye, marks on both wrists consistent with being tied up, and two major internal injuries.

"(The injuries) were of the nature that they would have caused significant pain to the child and or unconsciousness from the time it was inflicted to the time of death," said prosecutor David Deakin.

The child's grandmother left the courtroom in tears after the details of Dontel's death were read.

"This child was abused for a minimum of five days prior to his death in the home of Corinne Stephen," said Deakin.

Dontel had lived with his father and grandmother until his father's incarceration and deportation. He stayed with his mother until she entered a drug rehabilitation program. DSS took custody of the boy in December 2004 and placed him in a group home run by St. Mary's Church. Then, for reasons unknown to the family, Dontel was taken out of that group home and placed in a private foster home in Dorchester in March.

The boy's extended family was told Dontel was jumping on a bed and fell, hitting his head on a radiator. It wasn't until the next day that the foster mother took him to Caritas Carney Hospital with a swollen head, and the child died of cardiac arrest. Police said Thursday that the child was already dead when he arrived at the hospital.

The Jeffers family said it was convinced that the child was abused prior to his death and was not the victim of an accident.

"They waited since March to hear anything of any substance about the details of Dontel's death," said family attorney Tony Ellison.

"It has been very difficult for the family to hear the details of Dontel's death today," said family attorney Shawn O'Rourke.

Stephen has no prior criminal record.

"The details that were laid out today were new to us in the specificity. We had not had the medical report prior to this and the details contained in it. It is just a horrific pattern of abuse," said Department of Social Services Deputy Commissioner Susan Getman.

Prosecutors said Stephen sent a relative to clean her apartment while Dontel was in the emergency room. Accessory to murder charges may be filed.