According to court records there were multiple incidents of abuse of the girl in July and August. Witnessed observed Portis snatch the girl from her baby bouncer by one arm while yelling at her to stop crying. He then took her into a back bedroom and left her alone for hours while he played PlayStation in the living room.
Witnesses also told investigators they saw Portis pick up the child with both hands around her mid-section, lifting her high into the air and shaking her back and forth while saying “shut the (expletive) up.” Again, they said, he would leave her alone in the bedroom while he played with an 11-month-old boy and a 4-year-old girl in the living room. Witnesses said they noticed Portis was nurturing toward the 11-month-old male but not his daughter.
Another witness said Portis would use a box fan to blow on the girl to keep her from going to sleep while he fed her.
On Thursday, Aug. 8, witnesses said they saw Portis carry the child outside of the home to make her stop crying. When he brought her back inside, records state, the child was quiet and they did not hear her make another sound that night or into the following morning.
Later Friday, they told police, they saw the girl on the couch. She was barely moving and “only whimpering.” The child, they noticed, had a bruise on her face and a swollen eye.
When the witness tried to approach the child, Portis would not let anyone near her, police said. When Portis was asked what was wrong with her eye, Portis said the child had been bitten by a bug.
By Saturday, according to yet another witness, the child was still on the floor with little movement. Portis told them she was sick. She was swaddled in two blankets wrapped up to her neck. The witness told Portis to take her to the hospital, but he refused and said she was getting better.
Several people offered to take the girl to the hospital for him, but he refused, according to charging documents. Another witness, also on Saturday, noticed she had bruises on her face and dark marks around her neck. There was a knot in the mid-section of her back. “The child appeared to be sore to the touch,’’ the investigator wrote. “The child’s eyes were barely opening up.”
It wasn’t until Monday, Aug. 12, that Portis took his daughter to Vaughn Regional Memorial Hospital in Selma. At that point, medical staff determined she had a broken leg, a broken arm, a broken rib, a broken spine and trauma to the brain.
Portis was arrested the following day on the felony charges and remains behind bars. “This was a very horrific crime against a little baby,’’ Jackson said.
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