Arrested on suspicion of child abuse, a woman from Heber City was caring for a boy who was eleven months old at the time.
On Wednesday, 26-year-old Elioreth Jimenez-Marin faced charges in 4th District Court for severe child abuse, a second-degree crime. On Tuesday, she was lodged in the Wasatch County Jail.
A booking document from the police states that the inquiry started on Friday when Primary Children’s Hospital was informed about a brain bleed in an 11-month-old kid. According to the boy’s mother, who informed the police that she left her kid to the babysitter’s house at 8:20 in the morning, she heard from him at 2:30 in the afternoon that he “was not doing well and not waking up.”
Doctors informed investigators on Saturday that the boy “was not doing well and that the child had severe trauma to his head which was consistent with shaken baby (syndrome) and stated this was nonaccidental,” as stated in the affidavit.
According to the police, someone informed them that they needed to remove a portion of the baby’s skull.
According to the affidavit, Jimenez-Marin was interviewed by the police on Monday. She stated that she had been watching the kid and three other small children when she noticed the baby “laying at the bottom of the stairs” after briefly looking away. “Elioreth told me she shook the child back and forth to get him to wake up and he wouldn’t respond.”
But according to the officer who made the arrest, Jimenez-Marin claimed in her arrest report that she was frightened she wouldn’t see her children again and thus didn’t reveal “the truth about what had happened” at first. Elioreth confided in me that she felt compelled to share the truth as it would eventually surface.
The affidavit remains silent regarding the purported statements made by Jimenez-Marin to the officer prior to her arrest.