Father pleads not guilty to child abuse

Published 10:02 pm Friday, December 28, 2007

A Marysville father who reportedly abused twin 2-month-old infants and gave one oxycodone pleaded not guilty Friday to three felony charges filed in Snohomish County Superior Court.

A Feb. 28 trial date was set for Victor George Edenso, 31.

Bail was set at $100,000.

Doctors at Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center said the twins, a girl and a boy, both had multiple broken bones. The girl’s injuries are consistent with being squeezed and shaken, according to charging papers filed by deputy prosecutor Travis Johnson.

The girl had oxycodone and a THC, a chemical found in marijuana, in her system, papers said.

The case came to the attention of police Dec. 6 when they were told the girl was being treated in intensive care at the hospital with apparent respiratory or heart failure from an overdose of oxycodone.

She had been taken to a doctor to be treated for redness in her eyes and stopped breathing just before she arrived, Johnson said. The doctor administered chest compressions until paramedics came.

Edenso admitted that he smoked marijuana in the children’s presence. He said he uses the drug to ease pain from a foot injury, documents said.

At first, he denied giving the infant a painkiller. He told detectives that he might have had some residue on his hand from taking OxyContin himself and then feeding the infant.

Later, he told detectives that he had given the child a “very small piece of OxyContin,” documents said.

Edenso also told officers that he sometimes squeezes the infants tightly, partly because he is in pain due to the foot injury, documents said.

“Sometimes I don’t know my own strength,” he told detectives.

Reporter Jim Haley: 425-339-35447 or jhaley@heraldnet.com.