8 years for Marysville dad who beat baby, leaving her blind

MARYSVILLE — Katielynn likes really bright colors.

She likes chiming things that make music.

She loves to eat.

Already at 15 months old, she has overcome so much.

Her family did not know if she’d ever see, or hear, or graduate from a feeding tube, after a severe beating at the hands of her father in March 2018.

The assault left her bleeding in several parts of the brain. She suffered life-changing injuries to her eyes and ears. The family spent days at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle fearing she would die.

“We’re still nowhere near what she could’ve been before the injury,” said Nicolette Flynn, one of the girl’s grandmothers. “But she’s definitely doing better than the doctors originally thought.”

The child’s father, Kenneth Nason, 33, of Marysville, was sentenced Tuesday to eight years behind bars. Attorneys agreed to a prison term that is twice the typical maximum.

Nason invented a story to cover up what he did to her. He was alone with the girl March 10, 2018, while the mother worked a shift at Applebee’s. He called her up at work to tell her he’d been carrying the baby down the stairs when he slipped and fell. He told his girlfriend the baby was laughing and seemed normal. The mother came home and did not notice a broken blood vessel in the child’s right eye until later. Overnight, the baby vomited.

The father argued against taking the girl to the hospital. He grabbed the mother by the throat, slamming her against a wall and into the bed, according to a letter from the mother that was read aloud in court Tuesday.

“I knew in my heart that you did this to her, and it was not an accident,” she wrote.

Out in the sunshine the next morning, the mother saw bruises on the girl’s ears and nose. Doctors found hemorrhaging in the brain. The girl went into seizures. Tubes and electrodes were hooked up to her from head to toe.

The injuries did not match the father’s story, medical staff told detectives. Police were suspicious, too, because the story was full of holes and inconsistencies. At first Nason said he slipped on a job application that had been left on the second-highest step of the stairs. He twisted his body to try to save the girl, but lost his grip, he reported. Her head hit the wall and he fell on her, according to Nason. He claimed a mark her head, in the shape of a hand print, came from the trim of the stairs.

The next day police went to Nason’s home so he could reenact the accident with a doll. Detectives saw the stairs didn’t have trim. Nason changed his story. The print came from his hand, while he was supposedly trying to save her. In this retelling, the baby’s head was on the right side of his body. Earlier, he said her head was on the left side. And he said he had slipped on the top of the stairs. The job application was found folded under the coffee table, where the mother reported she had left it days earlier.

Police arrested Nason on March 20, 2018. In his backpack they found hypodermic needles. Two had been used. Nason had been abusing drugs since his teens, and he was addicted at the time of the assault, public defender Jennifer Bartlett told the judge.

A doctor found the injuries were consistent with violent shaking. She feared the girl might never recover.

The defendant pleaded guilty in February to second-degree assault of a child, with an aggravating factor that the victim was particularly vulnerable and incapable of resistance.

Nason lied to doctors and nurses who were trying to save his daughter’s life, deputy prosecutor Matt Baldock said.

“From the state’s perspective, this is perhaps the most heinous and reprehensible act that an individual can commit against a child,” the prosecutor said.

The family shared heartbreaking photos from the hospital in fundraisers to combat Shaken Baby Syndrome. A biker group in leather jackets, Guardians of the Children, filled a row of the courtroom gallery. They’ve helped to collect money for the girl’s care.

The mother addressed the court in a quiet voice, through tears. She tried to speak for about a minute. Flynn, the child’s grandmother, read a letter the mother wrote.

The mother asked Nason why he did what he did. She said he didn’t have to see the girl suffer for the past year. To feed the baby, the mother had to force a tube down her throat, when the child couldn’t see, hear or know what was happening.

Katielynn can’t communicate like others her age. She shrieks.

“Even at her neurology appointment six months later, we were told that she would never see, that the connections in her brain were lost and that the damage was done,” said Flynn, who is a nurse. “So we struggled with that for a long time.”

She’s expected to be legally blind for life.

Yet there has been healing, too. She started grasping for things, a sign that her vision has returned at least a little. She is learning to crawl. She’s getting fitted for hearing aids. At night she listens to her favorite Disney movie, “Moana,” before she goes to sleep.

Nason had nothing to say at the hearing.

As she handed down the sentence, Superior Court Judge Marybeth Dingledy spoke to the girl’s mother first.

“I want you to know this is not your fault,” the judge said. “You were doing what you needed to do to provide for the family. This is not your fault. So please take that weight off your shoulders, and understand that bad things happen to good people.”

Dingledy turned to Nason. Her comments were brief.

“This is something that is going to be with you for the rest of your life,” the judge said, “and it is your cross to bear.”

Caleb Hutton: 425-339-3454; chutton@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @snocaleb.