Parents of baby bitten by rats appear in court
Judge sets bail for each at $15,000
A judge set bail at $15,000 each for the parents of a 2-week-old girl who suffered 75 to 100 rat bites on her 5-pound body. The couple appeared Wednesday in Columbia County Circuit Court in Magnolia.
Until then, the couple — 19-year-old Erica Shryock and 18-year-old Charles Elliott — had been jailed without bail.
The parents remained jailed Wednesday afternoon on Class B felony charges of permitting abuse of a minor and Class D felony charges of endangering the welfare of a minor in the first degree.
A Class B felony is punishable by five to 20 years in prison and a fine not exceeding $15,000.
A Class D felony is punishable by up to six years in prison and a fine not exceeding $6,000.
Judge Hamilton Singleton advised the parents of the charges in court Wednesday. The defendants did not enter pleas.
According to an email from the Columbia County prosecutor’s office, the couple’s next court date will be June 1.
A police affidavit redacted the baby’s name.
Though initially taken to a Magnolia hospital, the baby was soon after transferred to Arkansas Children’s Hospital in Little Rock, where she underwent surgery Monday for facial reconstruction involving an open wound on her head.
A physician’s notes turned over to investigators estimated that the baby had suffered 75 to 100 bites and that there was “severe skin destruction from rat feeding,” which would have taken hours to occur, according to a police probable-cause affidavit.
Dr. Karen Farst of Children’s Hospital said that in her opinion the parents were
either absent or incapacitated not to have been awakened by the baby’s screams and crying, according to the affidavit.
The infant was sleeping in a bassinet where blood and rodents’ bloody footprints were found, the affidavit said. A bloody baby blanket and rodent droppings also were found in the home as was a blood-soaked infant toboggan, the affidavit said.
A woman working in the prosecuting attorney’s office
said an attorney is to represent the couple but had not formally made “an entry of appearance” in the case.
Elliott told police that he knew rats were in the house that the family shared with another woman and that they had done nothing to take care of the problem, the affidavit said.