Infant clings to life after father allegedly throws him into ceiling fan because he wouldn’t stop crying
A 1-month-old baby boy remains in critical condition after his father reportedly grabbed him by the throat, choked him, and threw him into a ceiling fan.
Prosecutors said Robert Jackson Jones Jr., 24, of Muskogee, Indiana, also confessed to smothering and slamming his infant son to stop his crying. The boy’s mother, Emma Whitehead, 22, is said to have taken him to hospital after he suffered from seizures. Hospital staff determined the boy suffered two skull fractures and blood pooling around his brain from the ordeal, according to Tulsa World.
The alleged abuse occurred from August 16 to August 19. Jones claimed he didn’t get medical attention for his son because he was scared of what would happen, KOKI reported
The Indiana father apparently also told investigators that he slammed the 1-month-old into a changing table before dropping in the bathroom, where he supposedly hit his head on the toilet.
“These injuries are considered to be non-accidental injuries,” Muskogee Police Department investigator James Poffel wrote in the probable cause affidavit. “And due to [the infant’s] declining medical condition, he was transported to Saint Francis Tulsa.”
The Muskogee County District Attorney’s Office also filed charges against the infant’s mother on Thursday. The Muskogee Phoenix reported that Whitehead is being prosecuted after she admitted to seeing the child’s bruises and seizures but waiting two days before taking him to the hospital.
On one occasion, Whitehead witnessed Jones putting her son “face down in the couch cushions and only told [Jones] not to do that because that is how children suffocate,” the court filing detailed.