A 2-year-old Florida girl is hospitalized in critical condition with broken bones and a brain bleed that were left untreated for a week.
The girl’s mother, 21-year-old Cheyenne Gray, and her boyfriend, 21-year-old Cameron Taylor, have been arrested.
The little girl was admitted to the hospital on June 12, WFLA reported.
Taylor reportedly told investigators that the toddler was injured when she fell off a bed and hit her head. Detectives challenged him on the severity of the girl’s injuries, however, and he said there had been another incident in which she fell off the toilet seat and hit her face on the bathtub.
And he said she also fell off his lap, face-first in the carpet, police said.
When asked about thumb imprints found on the child’s neck, he said they came from him holding her tightly to wash her hair.
Taylor told detectives he was “not aware of his own strength and didn’t mean to abuse the child,” an arrest affidavit said.
Taylor reportedly texted photographs of the girl’s injuries to Gray, who told detectives she didn’t seek medical attention for her daughter because “it would make her look like an abusive mother,” police said, according to WTSP.
Staff at Mease Countryside Hospital called the Clearwater Police Department when the toddler was brought in. She was subsequently transferred to St Joseph’s Hospital in Tampa.
Gray has been charged with child neglect, and Taylor has been charged with child neglect and child abuse (aggravated battery/great bodily harm)
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[Featured image: Cheyenne Gray, left, and Cameron Taylor/Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office]
