An Idaho man has been charged with aggravated after he allegedly fractured the skull of a week-old baby girl.
Kade Michael Jones, 25, was arrested on Wednesday and given a $250,000 bond in a court hearing the next day. He was also given a no contact order for the victim, should he post bond, EastIdahoNews.com reported.
The incident took place on May 11, when staff at Community Hospital in Idaho Falls alerted law enforcement to an infant suffering from a skull fracture, bruising, and swelling. The little girl was flown to Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah, where her current condition is unknown.
According to the police report, the baby’s doctor in Idaho Falls told a detective that the parents, Jones and his wife, said that “they only thing they could think of that may have caused this injury was their two-year-old daughter kicked (the baby) in the head when she was getting off the couch.” The doctor, however, said he was not certain a kick in the head by a two-year-old could have caused the damage seen in the infant.
The detective traveled to Salt Lake City, where the parents told him the same story. The detective saw the infant and said she had a “larger swollen area on the right side of the skull above the ear.”
Jones told the detective he had noticed the swollen area a few days before, but the couple decided to delay medical care until a regular check up. That check up prompted them to take the little girl to the hospital.
During a second interview, Jones told detectives he put the baby down on the floor to change her diaper and that “he slapped her on the side of her head with his right hand” because she was crying. Blaming it on “possibly a sensory overload,” Jones said he hit the baby “harder than he wanted to” out of anger.
He said he didn’t see any bruising when he finished changing the diaper.
Jones has a preliminary hearing scheduled for June 8 and could face up to 15 years in prison and a $50,000 fine if convicted.
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[Featured image: Kade Michael Jones/Bingham County Jail]
