North Las Vegas mom accused of abusing 18-month-old daughter
A North Las Vegas woman was arrested on child abuse charges last month after police said she caused brain bleeding in her 18-month-old daughter and blamed it on her son.
Police were called to University Medical Center on Aug. 23 in response to an infant with a brain bleed, according to a recently released Metropolitan Police Department arrest report. When officers arrived, they found that the baby was missing hair on the left side of her head and had bruises on top of her head and under her left eye.
When they spoke with the mother, 21-year-old Kathryn Henke, she told them her daughter had fallen off of her bed while sleeping Aug. 15. She said the bed was on a tile floor without a box spring under it. When the baby fell, she hit her head and got a bump on it, but the bump went away, Henke told police.
Henke also told police that on Aug. 23, she heard the baby scream from what she thought was a bad dream. When she went to check, Henke said she found her “tensing up” with her eyes rolling in the back of her head “as if she was possessed,” according to the report.
Her son was playing with a toy dinosaur nearby, and Henke said she found the baby’s hair on the toy. She told police she believed her son hit the baby in the head with the toy because he “plays rough.”
Henke’s boyfriend told the same story, but when police arrived at the home, they couldn’t find the dinosaur toy the boy allegedly was playing with, and they couldn’t find any of the baby’s hair in the home.
Doctors at the hospital said the baby had brain bleeding from when she fell off the bed the previous week, and that she had a skull fracture near her left temple.
When police interviewed Henke again on Aug. 26, she admitted to dropping her baby onto a crib and onto an air mattress on a wooden floor when she got frustrated with the baby for “jerking her head back” while being put to bed.
Henke was arrested that day and charged with five counts of child abuse, neglect or endangerment resulting in substantial bodily harm. She is being held at the Clark County Detention Center on $125,000 bail. Her next court date is Sept. 12.
Contact Alexis Egeland at aegeland@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0335. Follow @alexis_egeland on Twitter.