Sentenced: Parents suggest co-sleeping caused their 3-month-old daughter's broken leg

[Sugar Cookie]

Russell Walton of Sheboygan was charged with felony child abuse after his infant daughter was treated for injuries, including a broken leg, earlier this week.

According to the complaint, a detective from the Sheboygan Police Department was dispatched to Sheboygan Memorial Medical Center on Tuesday after a possible case of child abuse was reported.

Hospital staff told the detective that a mother had brought her 3-month-old daughter to the ER, saying she'd been crying all day. Upon exam, doctors determined that the infant had a broken right femur, numerous bruises and a hematoma to one of her eyes.

The child was transported by ambulance to Children's Hospital of Milwaukee to receive treatment for her injuries. Doctors there told the detective that the femur injury was likely caused by bending or twisting.

The mother of the child offered explanations for the injuries. She said she may have accidentally caused the bruise on the child's forehead by bumping her into the car door. She also suggested that she might have caused the broken femur by accidentally rolling over on her daughter while co-sleeping.

The detective interviewed both parents. Walton told the detective that he cared for the child while her mother was at work during the day. At around 8:30 a.m. on Dec. 18, Walton said, the child began crying for no reason. This lasted until the mother came home around 1:20 p.m. and decided to take her to the hospital.

Walton allowed the detective to read the Facebook messages he'd sent to the mother that day. In them, he talked about the crying and discussed giving the baby alcohol to calm her down. He told the detective that he didn't give the child alcohol, but he did have a drink himself. In the messages, he also expressed fear over having the child taken away from them.

Like the mother, Walton suggested to the detective that the injuries could have been the result of co-sleeping. As the conversation continued, the detective said, Walton appeared to become increasingly nervous. He denied having anything to do with his daughter's injuries.

https://www.postcrescent.com/story/...an-man-charged-felony-child-abuse/2381505002/

 

[Sejanus]

Isn't he a specimen of Furby and monkey cross breeding.

 

[Sugar Cookie]

I credit the mom for taking the child to the hospital but than have to take it back when she starts trying to cover for this piece of shit.

I got a feeling the mom is going to end up arrested as well.

 

[lithiumgirl]

I would be suspicious of anyone that hesitated to take a child to a hospital if a child was obviously hurt. Your first instinct if you were innocent would be to seek assistance. I suppose that its possible that this was caused by co-sleeping ... but I doubt it.

I would never co-sleep with my kids. Fuck that !!! I'm too selfish ... and not even a little bit ashamed of it either.

 

[Muriel Schwenck]

It's difficult to think of a way for a tiny baby to get a "broken right femur, numerous bruises and a hematoma to one of her eyes" while co-sleeping unless you were all sleeping on concrete and even that is implausible.

e.g., if the baby had a Brittle Bone disease, there would be smaller bones broken in addition to the femur. So, nope. He slammed the baby because he's pissed off being stuck babysitting.

I'd like to know why he is either unemployed or unemployable in this economy.
Either mom was totally bamboozled by excuses from dad (because she fervently believed "they've created a family and he would never hurt their baby, he loves her to death" bullshit) or she pretended it wasn't happening.

 

[Siobhan]

It's difficult to think of a way for a tiny baby to get a "broken right femur, numerous bruises and a hematoma to one of her eyes" while co-sleeping unless you were all sleeping on concrete and even that is implausible.

e.g., if the baby had a Brittle Bone disease, there would be smaller bones broken in addition to the femur. So, nope. He slammed the baby because he's pissed off being stuck babysitting.

I'd like to know why he is either unemployed or unemployable in this economy.
Either mom was totally bamboozled by excuses from dad (because she fervently believed "they've created a family and he would never hurt their baby, he loves her to death" bullshit) or she pretended it wasn't happening.

It sounds like the Dr.'s were describing a spiral break, and that can't usually happen without twisting the limb.
If the baby had brittle bone disease, chances are it would have broken one or both shoulders when coming through the birth canal, if naturally delivered. Even if it was a caesarian birth, it would have probably sustained some bone "crack" fractures just by normal handling/diaper changes by the staff before it left the hospital after birth.
The black eye is especially difficult to explain away, as at that age, it's damn near impossible to happen by accident.
Even as teens/adults, most of us can count on less than three fingers how many accidental black eyes we've sustained (unrelated to sports injuries, ie: a softball/baseball hit in the eye), if any at all.
The mother's "excuse" IMO, is cause alone for child services to step in, even if there were no serious injuries, as co-sleeping with a child of this age is stupid AF and can be deadly.
IIRC, nearly all hospitals require new parents to read and watch parenting videos, or even require classes before they'll release the infant to go home, and co-sleeping is in the top three "NEVER DO THIS with your newborn" warnings.

 

[Muriel Schwenck]

nearly all hospitals require new parents to read and watch parenting videos, or even require classes before they'll release the infant to go home, and co-sleeping is in the top three "NEVER DO THIS with your newborn" warnings.

It will never be completely effective. This type of news will always exist.
There will never be enough legislative, bureaucratic or biblical, moral, or modern PC instructions to eliminate the stupidity and incompetence of human behavior.
I doubt if the baby parenting classes have much impact on the lowlife types who will eventually squash, break or scald babies.

 

[Sugar Cookie]

@Muriel Schwenck

I wish that hospitals or churches provided baby boxes so that parents who can't or wont buy cribs/bassinets had a safe alternative that co-sleeping with their infants.

I would also like to add no matter how many times people are told not to shake infants/babies there will always be people with poor impulse control that take their frustration out on the child.

 

[Brillig]

I think some cases of co-sleeping are really just about laziness. They don't want to get up to deal with baby in crib, or next room.

 

[Siobhan]

@Muriel Schwenck

I wish that hospitals or churches provided baby boxes so that parents who can't or wont buy cribs/bassinets had a safe alternative that co-sleeping with their infants.

I would also like to add no matter how many times people are told not to shake infants/babies there will always be people with poor impulse control that take their frustration out on the child.

The Mrs. grew up very poor, she's under age fifty and used an outhouse throughout much of her childhood years.
As a newborn and infant, she slept in a large dresser drawer next to her mom's bedside that was kept open at all times, and as sad as it may seem, at least it was a far safer place than co-sleeping with her mother (her parents separated soon after she was born).
As she got bigger, her mom got a playpen hand me down from a family member, and that was her bed until she was about five, and then began co-sleeping with her mother, while her two older brothers shared a bed.
Her mom would walk ten miles one way each month to buy food stamps - in those days you had to pay $0.25 cents on the dollar for them, and then manage to carry home enough groceries to feed her three children for a month.
They ate a lot of beans and rice (food we still love in our home), along with potatoes, and eggs from the chickens they raised, but her mom saw to it that her children never went hungry, or without warm winter clothing and shoes even if they were "hand me downs".

When I read about all of the parental fails on the DD, I'm always reminded that there are still so many parents whom we never hear about, that no matter how poor they are, will do whatever it takes to insure that their children grow up with the essentials of food, clothing, a roof over their heads and plenty of love to allow their children to thrive and grow to become wonderful adults.

 

[Muriel Schwenck]

I wish that hospitals or churches provided baby boxes so that parents who can't or wont buy cribs/bassinets had a safe alternative that co-sleeping with their infants.

Poor people used to use a dresser drawer for the baby. These negligent co-sleepers would probably use a baby box to store stuff and still squash the baby. It's not that hard to find something reasonably safe.
It's rather beside the point, I still doubt co-sleeping broke the baby's femur. There is something worse going on in that home.

 

[Sugar Cookie]

The defendant Russell James Walton was found guilty of the following charge(s) in this case.

• 2nd-Degree Recklessly Endangering Safety, a class G felony, Wisconsin Statutes 941.30(2).

Count no.	Statute	Description	Severity	Disposition
1	941.30(2)	2nd-Degree Recklessly Endangering Safety	Felony G	Guilty Due to No Contest Plea

On 09-13-2019 the following was ordered:​

Sentence: State Prison 4 Years
Sentence: Extended Supervision 5 Years

 

[Sugar Cookie]

Would love to know what the missing link did to that poor baby and if mom will let him back in the home once he is released.