Shaken infant hospitalized with skull fractures, other injuries; Pennsylvania parents charged
02/17/2021 12:10 pm PST
HANOVER, Pa. (TCD) --
A Pennsylvania couple was charged in a child-abuse investigation after their 6-month-old child was hospitalized with multiple injuries in January, police announced Tuesday.
Penn Township Police officers responded to a report of an unresponsive 6-month-old infant on the 700 block of Barrett Street on Jan. 3.
The child was hospitalized with multiple injuries, police said. The York County Office of Children, Youth, and Families requested police assistance in a child-abuse investigation.
Police said Kayota Beck and Jocylena Beck were charged with two counts of aggravated assault, endangering the welfare of children, and simple assault. Both subjects were arraigned and bail was set at $10,000 for each of them.
WPMT-TV reports hospital staff contacted York County Children and Youth Services (CYS) when they noted the child had suffered multiple skull fractures. The child also suffered a broken arm and a broken rib, had blood behind its eyes, and blood in the front and rear spine extending from the cervical vertebra to the sacrum vertebra, WPMT reported.
Doctors said the injuries were the consistent with that of a baby being shaken, and happened on at least two occasions, based on evidence that some of the injuries appeared to be older.
Jocylena Beck allegedly told police she believed the baby could have been injured when another child in the house knocked a step stool over and it lodged under the baby's bouncy seat, police say.
WPMT reports a CYS worker reported to police on Feb. 10 that she had spoken to the Becks during a visit to their home, and reported Jocylena Beck "made some incriminating statements."
During the interview with CYS, the worker reported, Jocylena Beck allegedly admitted that she and her husband shake the baby to stop him from crying. WPMT reports Kayota Beck allegedly told the worker he Googled how hard you need to shake a baby to cause injury and learned "it needed to be 40 mph to cause injury."
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