Relatives of a 3-year-old St. Paul boy who died after his mother’s boyfriend severely beat him last winter had one question when they faced him in court Thursday afternoon.

“My question is why?” Accia Parker asked Alontae Butts, 25, during his sentencing hearing in Ramsey County District Court.

“Why didn’t you just say something … if it was too much,” Parker continued, crying. “Why would you take it out on the children? They were harmless.”

Her comments came shortly before Judge Robyn Millenacker sentenced Butts to 15 years in prison on one count of second-degree murder in Levi Gardet’s death.

Butts also was convicted of malicious punishment of a child for life-threatening injuries he inflicted on Levi’s 2-year-sister.

In addition to Levi and his sister, Butts frequently cared for their 6-year-old sibling while their mother worked double shifts at McDonald’s to support her family and help Butts get back on his feet, Parker said.

She added that her family had known Butts since he was a child.

Parker is the children’s grandmother. Their mother, Feleica Alpine, also spoke during the hearing.

Butts declined to say anything. He entered an Alford plea in the case last month, meaning he acknowledged that the state likely had enough evidence to convict him if his case went to trial while still asserting his innocence.

His attorney, Connie Iversen, said Butts made the plea partly to help Alpine regain custody of her two remaining children, both of whom were removed from her care by the state following Levi’s death.

“He wants the court to know that he did love those children and he took care of them to the best of his ability,” Iversen said.

Millenacker noted otherwise, reminding the court of the facts of what she described as a “sad” and “stunning” case.

Butts sometimes choked the children to make them fall asleep, for example. He also punched them in the face when he was frustrated with them, according to remarks from the 6-year-old after Levi’s death.

The 6-year-old said Butts acted that way when the kids “were bad” or “wouldn’t stop crying.”

On Jan. 15, paramedics responded to the home where the children lived on Carroll Avenue after a report of an unresponsive child.

They found Levi in cardiac arrest with bruises on his face and abdomen and took him by ambulance to Children’s Hospital, where he was pronounced dead shortly thereafter.

Alpine told authorities she left the children with Butts that day while she went to work. When she got home late that evening, Levi was complaining of intense stomach pains and had a mark on his face.

Butts told her the child had hit himself with a cellphone chord.

When his mother went to check on him early that morning, he was unresponsive.

Doctors discovered Levi suffered multiple traumatic injuries, including a tear to his small intestine and hemorrhages to his liver and diaphragm.

His siblings also were evaluated, and doctors found a tear in the 2-year-old’s liver that likely would have killed her without early intervention.

Alpine cried at the sentencing hearing Thursday as she described what her life has been like since Levi’s death. She said she’s working hard to get her other two children back.

“I just don’t understand why,” she cried. “It just really, really hurt … I wouldn’t wish this on anyone.”

She also read a letter that her 6-year-old wrote.

In it, the child said Butts was “always mean” and “never nice” when he took care of them and asked the judge to send him to jail.

Before sending him out of the courtroom, Millacker told Butts that he was wise to take the plea deal offered to him by the state, noting that otherwise he would have likely received a much longer prison sentence.

“I hope you understand, and I think you do, the tremendous suffering and immense loss and grief you have caused,” she said.