A Utah babysitter has been arrested in connection with the death of a 4-month-old infant.
According to Fox 43, Zachary Walton, 28, was arrested in Midvale Sunday and is facing multiple felony charges, including murder and child abuse.
A police report indicated that the infant sustained skull fractures on both sides of her head, along with a brain bleed. The infant is at the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Primary Children’s Hospital, where doctors said hre condition is not improving.
Walton, a resident of The Road Home, a private non-profit shelter on West 9th Ave that assists the homeless, was a family friend. He was asked by the infant’s mother to watch the child while she worked her food delivery job.
At some point while babysitting, Walton became “very frustrated” with the infant’s persistent crying, telling law enforcement that his frustration level was “8 out of 10.”
Walton reportedly handed the infant to his minor stepdaughter, but she was unable to calm the baby. Seeking relief from the stress, Walton took the child to the roof so he could vape. On the way to the rooftop, while holding the infant, he “smashed her head into the metal corner of the elevator where it curves to the sliding doors,” according to the arrest report.
Walton admitted to thinking, “How do I get her to shut up?”
He then allegedly struck her head against the elevator again, causing the infant to stop crying, stop breathing, and her heart to stop. Walton claimed he attempted life-saving measures.
Rooftop video surveillance shows him wandering around, holding the infant’s lifeless body and breathing in her face for 17 minutes.
“Zachary stated the four-month-old stopped crying and looked at him,” authorities reported. “Zachary said he thought to himself, ‘What have I done?’”
Walton eventually called the child’s mother and told her the child was not breathing, according to KUTV. He then contacted his roommate, who came upstairs and persuaded him to call 911.
During a police interview, Walton used a doll to demonstrate how he struck the baby’s head. The sound produced by the doll’s head during this demonstration “could be heard several rooms away in the police station,” Fox 13 reported.
Walton was booked into the Salt Lake County Jail on two second-degree felony counts of aggravated child abuse and one second-degree felony count of murder.
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[Feature Photo: Pixabay]
