8-Year-Old Dies Protecting His Sister, Now His Organs Save Even More

It's safe to say that 8-year-old Californian Dante Daniels has a heart of gold and the courage of a lion. Dante was beaten to death with a hammer while protecting his younger sister from being sexually assaulted by his mother's ex-boyfriend, according to his grandmother.

Dante was brutally beaten with a hammer on Sept. 1. He died six days later.

According to a criminal complaint, 23-year-old Deandre Chaney Jr. was performing a criminal lewd act on Dante's 7-year-old sister when the child stepped in to help.

"This guy beat my grandson with a hammer. Down to his spine. They couldn't save his brain," Dante's grandmother Monique Brown told Fox40.

According to police reports, Chaney was found in Nevada on Sept. 2. Officers said he was wrapped in a tarp hiding in a backyard shed. He was arrested on an outstanding warrant.

Chaney is the ex-boyfriend of Dante's mother, 28-year-old Elizabeth Salone. Salone had asked him to watch her children while she took her brother to work, the Sacramento Bee reports.

When Salone returned home, she heard one of her children crying. Salone told detectives that she was "struck at least three times" with a hammer from behind as she went to check on her child. Chaney then tied her up and poured lighter fluid on her.

Police said he grabbed her car keys and some other items and left in Salone's vehicle.

Salone sustained an eye injury during the altercation and will "probably never see out of her left eye," Brown said.

"My granddaughter will need a lot of help," continued Brown.

Unfortunately, this family is not alone. In surveys of adults, 1 in 4 women and 1 in 6 men report that they were sexually abused as a child.

According to the National Institute on Violence Against Women, two-thirds of all victims of sexual assault reported to the police were under 18. In nearly 95 percent of the cases, the offender was a family member or acquaintance.

Child sex offenders tend to victimize more often than other sexual offenders. Seventy percent of child sex offenders had between one and nine victims; 23 percent between 10 and 40 victims.

Among Childhood Sexual Assault (CSA) survivors, 27% were raped during adolescence and 42% were raped in adulthood.

But there's a small piece of a silver lining at the end of this horrific story. That heart of lion that Dante had...

... is going to good use. Brown said even after Dante's death, he's continuing to help people. A 4-year-old boy in California received Dante's heart and will now probably live a long life thanks to Dante's organs.

Chaney was arraigned on murder, attempted murder and charged with lewd acts with a child under 14.