http://www.theameryfreepress.com/cr...cle_370aa8f6-ac2a-11e7-bdcc-0bed1b878f81.htmlOct 8, 2017
A former Osceola man, 24-year-old Travis J. Parmeter Jr. has been charged with child abuse in Polk County this week, after his five-month old daughter was transported to Children’s Hospital in St. Paul.
Officers responded to a pulseless, non-breathing infant on October 2. Officers initially believed the infant’s condition to be related to her premature birth as a twin.
Medical staff at Osceola Medical Center informed officers that the infant showed signs of significant neurological damage consistent with intentional trauma and abuse, with symptoms including a possible brain bleed, a weak pulse, fixed pupils and a lack of response. Children’s Hospital staff agreed, noting signs of brain injury and both partially healed and new rib fractures. Her clinical presentation was diagnostic for child abuse.
Both Parmeter, and the infant’s mother, Tesa J. Denver, had been drinking when the incident was reported, according to the complaint.
Parmeter no longer lives at the home with the infant’s mother, but arrived there at approximately 1:30 that afternoon. Denver reported having left the infant, who appeared normal, in Parmeter’s care between 4 and 5 p.m. when she went to a doctor’s appointment. Denver later told authorities that it was the last time she saw her daughter conscious prior to the ambulance arriving at approximately 7 p.m.
Investigators learned through a family member who’d asked Denver about Parmeter’s involvement, that Parmeter admitted that he ‘may have broken [the infant’s] ribs from squeezing her hard.’
According to the complaint, in a text message exchange in which that family member urged Denver to tell the police all that she knew, she replied, “I love you too, you do not turn your back on family.”
http://www.theameryfreepress.com/cr...cle_1db16706-e027-11e7-9e7f-97d9dabf2214.htmlTesa Denver accused of failing to protect her infant from suspected abuse at the hands of the child’s father pleaded not guilty last Thursday.
During a preliminary hearing, prosecuting attorney James Rennicke made the case that Denver should have known the infant was in danger because of the father’s history of behavior. According to Rennicke’s chief witness, Osceola Police Chief Ron Pedrys, Denver acknowledged during interviews that Parmeter’s rough handling of their children had alarmed her prior to the early-October incident. She told Pedrys she had repeatedly urged him not to hold the babies tightly at the torso or “vibrate” them when he was frustrated by their crying. In addition to the squeezing and vibrating, she had seen him pat them hard on the back, “set them down hard” and toss them into a baby swing or onto the couch when their crying frustrated him.
Denver’s attorney, Frederick Bechtold, asked Pedrys whether Denver had explained why she had not reported concerns about Parmeter’s behavior.
“She said she thought it would stop,” Pedrys said. “And she wasn’t sure what to do because he was the dad.”
Polk County Judge Dan Tolan ruled there was enough evidence of a crime to bind Denver over for trial.
“The defendant had knowledge that Mr. Parmeter had caused great bodily harm to the child, that the defendant was physically and emotionally capable of taking action that would have prevented great bodily harm from taking place,” Tolan said. “That’s based upon the ongoing pattern of the ‘vibrating,’ the throwing the child onto the couch, the throwing the child (while) in the car seat, as well as the patting on the back that was demonstrated by Chief Pedrys to be a very loud and substantial hit on the back. I will also find that the defendant’s failure to act exposed the child to unreasonable risk of great bodily harm and facilitated the great bodily harm between the child and the person.”