EVERETT — An Everett woman reportedly admitted she was upset with her 4-month-old son’s father when she roughly shoved a bottle in the baby’s mouth.
The infant suffered injuries to his palate and doctors also found a serious head injury that prompted them to send the child to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.
A witness reported to police that Margaret Dan had repeatedly punched the child after a falling out with her boyfriend, the boy’s father.
Prosecutors have charged Dan with first-degree assault of a child. She pleaded not guilty to the charge Monday afternoon in Snohomish County Superior Court.
She was being held on $50,000 bail and ordered to stay away from her son.
“The defendant was observed repeatedly striking her 4-month-old child in the head with a closed fist,” Snohomish County deputy prosecutor Travis Johnson wrote.
The boy “suffered a bilateral brain bleed as a result of this defendant’s grotesque assault on a small infant.”
Dan, 23, doesn’t have any prior criminal history. She reportedly told authorities the couple’s children had been removed by “tribal welfare for an unexplained reason; however they were soon placed with them again because possibly … they were no longer homeless,” Johnson wrote in court documents.
Dan reportedly was highly intoxicated when she was arrested. Everett police noted that the baby’s father also seemed drunk. Dan told police that the couple had spent the morning drinking a bottle of Fireball whiskey and a bottle of Captain Morgan’s rum.
A 14-year-old boy reported hearing the couple argue. The baby’s father left and the teen went downstairs to see if Dan and the infant were OK. He told police he saw Dan punching something while seated on the sofa. “He heard a ‘smacking’ noise that sounded like someone being hit,” according to court documents.
He heard the baby crying and screaming so he sent a message to his mom, telling her to return home.
The woman discovered that the child was severely injured and bleeding. Another witness told investigators that Dan admitted to punching the baby because she was mad at her boyfriend, Johnson wrote.
Police were told the man came home after hearing about the child’s injuries. He and Dan reportedly had some sort of physical confrontation. She told police the man shoved her on the couch. A nurse at the jail noted that Dan had a scrape under her eye, a swollen lip and was drunk.
Dan allegedly told police she and her boyfriend were arguing and he left. She said the baby was crying so she put her hand over his mouth to keep him quiet. She denied that she impeded his ability to breath. She told police she put the boy in a bouncer seat on the couch and “forcibly shoved the bottle in his mouth,” Johnson wrote.
She denied striking the boy.
Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463; hefley@heraldnet.com.
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