Child Abuse

A newborn that was found in a St. Louis yard waste dumpster is recovering in state custody.

“The baby was about a foot down right up against the front of the dumpster,” said Wesley Falker in an interview with Fox 2 Tuesday.

Falker found the newborn baby boy inside the dumpster just before nine. The scene was just behind Wesley’s home on the 5700 hundred block of Waterman. Wesley tells Fox 2 he was just about to throw his lawn clippings into the dumpster when he heard a sound.

“I started to reach for the trash can and I heard the baby cry,” explained Falker.

And hopefully the cops arresting him returned the favor.

Police In DeLand said they have never seen anything like it, Local 6’s Erik Webber reported.

Officers said Kenneth Smith, 25, got into a fight with his girlfriend Thursday and it then escalated into violence.

Smith’s girlfriend was in a bedroom holding her infant son when police said he pepper sprayed the woman and his own son in the face.

“We have had cases where children get injured during an argument, but it is the first time we have heard pepper spray or Mace has ever been used,” DeLand Police Sgt. John Anderson told the Daytona Beach News Journal. “It is unusual.”

The tale of Haleigh Poutre is an amazing one. She suffered a massive head injury in 2005 and remained in a vegetative state for two years. And just when doctors were about to recommend she be taken off life support in December 2007, she started to breath on her own and regained consciousness and was able to give police startling details about what may have put her in the coma in the first place.

Interviewed in her bedroom at Franciscan Hospital for Children, Haleigh communicated to investigators that her adoptive mother and stepfather, Holli and Jason Strickland, regularly used physical discipline, such as spanking her or slapping her in the face.

When asked about being hurt during her childhood, she did not directly say anything about the weekend in September 2005 when she lapsed into a coma. Prosecutors have described her adoptive mother as the harshest of her abusers, but Haleigh expressed to police largely fond feelings toward Holli Strickland, who took care of the girl since she was 4.

In another key development in the case, Haleigh’s younger sister, Samantha Poutre, 11, has given police a new statement this year about how Haleigh suffered her traumatic brain injury, the sources said. She told police that Haleigh was kicked down the stairs in an episode involving Holli and Jason Strickland. Samantha had previously told police that Haleigh may have hurt herself practicing a back flip and accidentally hitting her head on a basement pipe, defense lawyers have said.

The story of the Austria man who kept his daughter and her children locked in a cellar for 24 years just got stranger and more depressing.

Stefan Fritzl, 18, and his brother Felix, five, learned to talk by watching a television in the dungeon where they were held with their mother Elisabeth Fritzl, 42. But their form of communciation is only partly intelligible to Austrian police officers.

Police chief Leopold Etz, 50, who has met the two boys, said: “It is only half true that they can speak. They communicate with noises that are a mixture of growling and cooing.

A 19-year-old was arrested on child neglect charges after police found her and her baby living in a home with no running water and littered with garbage and rotting food. We’re no neat freaks, but we would imagine there’s some serious psychological issues going on to live like that, especially with your kid.

“This home was not fit for a human residence,” an arrest affidavit states. “No child could remain healthy in this home and with the numerous biohazards the child was at risk of future great harm.”

An officer was dispatched at 10:48 a.m. to the residence and met a state Department of Children and Families case worker, who said a complaint was reported that a 1-year-old child was being neglected by his mother at the home.

“By the level of filth and smell coming from the home, it appeared from outside of the home, to be a dangerous environment for humans to reside in,” the affidavit states.

Police reported every room in the two-bedroom house was “filthy,” brimming with dirt, garbage, dirty diapers, decaying food and other items. A 1-year-old boy was in a crib in the living room.

A Chicago mother is being held on $700,000 bail after she was charged last weekend in the death of her infant daughter. She allegedly starved and dehydrated the baby, and just overall neglected her, not even bothering to change the child’s diaper.

Chicean Crosby, 25, of the 7200 block of South Winchester Avenue wept at the hearing before Circuit Judge Raymond Myles at the Cook County Criminal Courts Building.

Crosby’s daughter, also named Chicean, was found dead Oct. 13 by paramedics responding to a call that the child was unresponsive. After the child’s death was ruled a homicide by the Cook County medical examiner’s office on April 10, Crosby was arrested and charged on Saturday.

Though police said in October that the death did not appear to be the result of criminal activity, no cause of death was given by the medical examiner’s office at the time pending further investigation.

Side note: Why did the autopsy take so long? Have we been watching too much CSI?

A “man” in Hayward, California has been charged with 4 felony counts for holding an infant under scalding hot water. The report says that the 16-month-old suffered “unimaginable agony” — which we think perhaps this guy should be subjected to in return, no?

Christian Perez, 20, was charged with child abuse, child endangerment, torture and aggravated mayhem. He’s been held without bail at the Hayward police station since his arrest Thursday, Orrey said.

Emergency dispatchers initially summoned firefighters to the DMV parking lot on Soto Road and Jackson Street in response to a 9-1-1 call claiming a baby was suffering from convulsions.

The baby was found be unresponsive and convulsing and was immediately taken to Children’s Hospital Oakland, Orrey said. Firefighters, suspecting possible child abuse, contacted police.

Christian Perez told Special Victims Unit detectives that the baby suffered burns while he was giving him a shower at his home on the 2700 block of Melbourne Avenue, an explanation they thought to be inconsistent with the boy’s injuries, Orrey said.

Another defenseless toddler dies at the hands of a loser “boyfriend”.

Seriously, when are single moms going to wake up and smell some self respect and dignity while putting their children first? Is sex and a the prospect of a partner, any partner, so important that they’re willing to allow these loser men to beat their babies to death. I hope the loss and suffering was worth the cheap sex and companionship of a psycho loser.

Citrus deputies said that Shands officials said the boy “suffered severe head trauma, a brain stem injury and massive retinal hemorrhaging.”

Spagnolo, who is unemployed and lives in a garage at a friend’s home, told investigators he baby-sits for Sheppard, who lives in Ocala. He said he and Andrew sleep in the same bed.

Apparently forcing children into servitude is big business in Senegal, Africa. One school actually forces their children to beg in the streets for hours and hours each day. If they don’t bring in enough money, they are beaten. Count your blessings for what you have, folks.

Most of the boys — 90 percent, the study found — are sent out to beg under the cover of Islam, placing the problem at the complicated intersection of greed and tradition. For among the cruelest facts of Coli’s life is that he was not stolen from his family. He was brought to Dakar with their blessing to learn Islam’s holy book.

In the name of religion, Coli spent two hours a day memorizing verses from the Quran and over nine hours begging to pad the pockets of the man he called his teacher.

It was getting dark. Coli had less than half the 72 cents he was told to bring back. He was afraid. He knew what happened to children who failed to meet their daily quotas.

They were stripped and doused in cold water. The older boys picked them up like hammocks by their ankles and wrists. Then the teacher whipped them with an electrical cord until the cord ate their skin.

Ugh. And this “father” didn’t call an ambulance until 5 hours as he punched his infant over and over again the stomach - even though she immediately had difficulty breathing after the beating.

How anybody could think that sucker punching an infant repeatedly is a good idea is beyond us.

Larnell Mace told police he punched 4-month-old Jasmine Mace in the stomach five to six times because she wouldn’t stop crying. His confession followed several other stories he told officers, including a claim that he accidentally stepped on his daughter and an admission to smoking marijuana the afternoon she died, said Lake County Assistant State’s Attorney Steve Scheller.

Well at least these jerks didn’t claim they put their kids in the dryer so they could have fun.

A Camden County couple was charged with child abuse for allegedly putting two children in a clothes dryer.

The Camden County Sheriff’s Department accused Nicole Eberhart, 29, and her boyfriend, Stephen Ray Jr., 26, of placing Eberhart’s two children — 8 and 10 years old — into the dryer.

The pair are each charged with two counts of felony child abuse, the sheriff’s department said.

Ray is also accused of hitting the children. He was charged with violating his probation and is being held without bond. He has a first court date on the child abuse charges on Thursday.

Wow, there is so much wrong with this story we don’t even know where to start. Let’s begin by looking at the facts:

Two family friends accused of depriving a toddler of fluid for a week as punishment for bed-wetting appeared in court Wednesday to face charges in his death.

Police said 23-month-old Amari Jackson died of dehydration while Sharon Patterson and her brother Robert Patterson were caring for him in February.

Investigators said glasses around the house were laced with hot sauce to keep the boy from drinking.

According to an arrest warrant affidavit, Robert Patterson told police that the boy cried for his mother when he began staying with him and his sister, but that “towards the end of his stay Amari was crying for something to drink.”

Amari was pronounced dead at to Yale-New Haven Hospital, where medical records indicate that he “appeared wasted” and had “sunken eyes.”

1. You’re not supposed to “punish” bedwetting.
2. Who expects a 23-month-old to be potty trained?
3. Who doesn’t know that even an adult can’t go without fluids for a couple days, much less a week?
4. Why did the boys mother not check up on him?

So were these people cruel, stupid, or a dangerous mixture of both?

Sure, they have a gigantic salad bar and all, but we don’t recommend Ruby Tuesday as an appropriate place to abandon your child.

According to police, employees of the restaurant at 50 Shunpike Road called police after they found the infant alone in a booth in the dining area. Police eventually were able to locate the father, Andrew Yu, 32, of Hemlock Court. Police would not say where they found Yu or how long he was away from the infant.

Yu was charged with leaving a child unsupervised in a place of public accommodation. He was released from police custody after posting a $500 non-surety bond, meaning he did not have to put up any cash or other collateral. Yu is scheduled to appear Tuesday at Middletown Superior Court.

I just can’t stand to hear another story like this. A mother kills herself and her two small children, one toddler and one 6 year old by drowning herself and the two children in a river brook.

Police tried to save them, but the mom was determined to end their lives and had no intention of sparing her children the suffering of drowning and the fear of their last moments - murder by the hands of their own mother.

When, oh, when are we going to wake up as a society and help children in our own backyard who are victims of their parents screwed up intentions and abuse and depression and whatever else excuse we so conveniently shrug off? Mothers diagnosed with depression need more than some counseling and medications. They need constant monitoring and perhaps and intervention from social services in effort to take their children away. We cannot sit here and allow these crazy and/or depressed moms and dads incompetently raise children. MT hopes that children are worth more than an, “Oh, well”, to the situation. MT finds it deplorable that these women are given sympathy instead of scorn. Nothing about this is noble or misconstrued. This is a murder/suicide and those children deserved better.

WARDSBORO, Vt. (AP) — A woman apparently intent on suicide waded into a brook carrying her 6-year-old daughter and purposely eluded the grasp of a police officer attempting to rescue her before being swept downstream, police said Sunday.

Both Nicole Waring and the child died, and a search continued Sunday for Waring’s 2 1/2-year-old daughter.

“For whatever reason, it was a deliberate action,” said Vermont State Police Capt. David Covell.

Waring, 40, was reported missing early Saturday after she disappeared from her parents’ Wardsboro house with the two girls, the state police said.

As troopers began preparing a search party, State Police Sgt. Robert McCarthy spotted Waring and a child standing on the edge of Wardsboro Brook, about 100 yards from the parents’ home, Covell said.

Normally placid, the brook was swollen with rain and snowmelt and had a swift current.

McCarthy tried to talk to Waring but she ignored him and walked into the water holding the child, police said.

Fellow Navy seamen Corey Alan Bryant and Heaven Kristina Smith have been charged in the death of their baby, Miracle Grace. Miracle’s twin sister, Heaven L. Bryant is in the hospital. Smith was charged with one count of murder, and both her and Bryant were charged with two felony counts of neglect, as the infants were apparently just ignored by the couple:

Both children were taken to Bon Secours DePaul Medical Center on Tuesday, where Miracle Grace died about 9:30 a.m. police said.

The medical examiner determined the death to be a homicide, police said.

The cause was medical and nutritional neglect, said Donna Price, spokeswoman for the medical examiner’s office.

The remaining twin has been transferred to Portsmouth Naval Medical Center.

Both parents appeared early Wednesday in Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court. They are being held without bond, according to Amanda Howie, spokeswoman for the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office. They indicated they intend to hire attorneys and are due back in court April 30.