Caregiver charged in 2015 murder of child
WEST GOSHEN » A township woman employed as a paid caregiver for a 22-month-old boy has been arrested and charged with the child’s murder more than three years ago, according to a criminal complaint filed last week by police investigators.
Police said that Hainan “Chelsea” Chang, her husband, and the child’s maternal aunt brought the boy to the Chester County Hospital the morning of Jan. 8, 2015, wrapped in a blanket. He was declared dead there, the cause of death later determined to be multiple blunt force injuries to the head, subdural hematoma, retinal hemorrhages, and other injuries.
Chang, who was the child’s sole caregiver in the time before his death, said he had been unresponsive for more than 20 hours before she brought him to the emergency room.
Chang, 43, of West Chester, was taken into custody at her home on Friday, and charged with third-degree murder, voluntary manslaughter, involuntary manslaughter, aggravated assault, and endangering the welfare of children.
The death was listed as a homicide in October after a forensic review of the case by a noted medical examiner
The defendant was arraigned by Magisterial District Judge William Kraut, who ordered her held in Chester County Prison without bail. A preliminary hearing has been set for April 5.
Her arrest marked the fourth time in less than six months that an adult caregiver has been charged with the death of an infant in the county. Just one month before, on Feb. 10, a Coatesville father, Zion Isaiah Shockley, was charged with first-degree murder in the death of his 5-month-old son. He is awaiting trial in Common Pleas Court.
In December, authorities announced the arrests of a Downingtown man and a Coatesville man in separate incidents involving the deaths of two children. Jamal Bailey was charged with giving his 10-month-old daughter the anti-psychotic medication Seroquel, causing her death in April 2017. William Gardner was charged with third-degree murder in the December 2016 death of his 4-month-old son by physical abuse. Both are awaiting trial before Judge Jeff Sommer.
Chang’s case has been assigned to Deputy District Attorney Megan King of the DA’s Child Abuse Unit. She was unavailable for comment Friday. First Assistant District Attorney Michael Noone declined comment on the case.
Attorney Evan Kelly of West Chester, who represents Chang, said Saturday that the case was a tragedy, but that his client was not responsible for the boy’s death.
“She brought the child to the hospital, she cooperated with police,” Kelly said. “Then 2 ½ years later, a doctor declared it to be a homicide. We adamantly disagree, and we’re going to fight the charges.”
According to the complaint filed by West Goshen Detective David S. Maurer and Lt. Michael Carroll, Chang was paid $2,000 a month by the child’s parents to care for him. The parents live in Florida, where they operate a restaurant, and needed someone to look after the child as their work schedules made it difficult.
In an interview with investigators, Wei Feng “Mandy” Dong, the child’s maternal aunt, said she had approached Chang and her husband, Siu Fung Lee, about serving as caregivers in early 2014. The couple has two school-age children of their own. They began caring of the boy in March of that year, when he was a 1-year-old.
Chang gave police a long narrative about the time between Jan. 7, 2015, and Jan. 8, 2015, when she was looking after the boy on her own because her husband was at work on the overnight shift in Philadelphia. She and her husband both said at the time that there were no obvious injuries to the boy in the days before his death.
According to the complaint, Chang said Jan. 7, 2015 started off as a normal day as her children went to school. She said she fed the boy around noon and later took him out of his high chair and placed him on the kitchen floor. While she was in her son’s bedroom, she heard the child begin to cry and went to check on him. She said she found him under the kitchen table, and had to get down on the floor to drag him out from underneath.
Chang said the child had a red mark on his forehead, and that when she picked him up he vomited. She sat with him until he stopped crying, she told police, and then put him back in his high chair, where he seemed to go to sleep.
Lee, Chang’s husband, told police that he saw the boy in the high chair about 3 p.m. that day when he returned home from work, and that he appeared to be asleep. He stayed there until 4:30 p.m., when she moved him to a sofa, but he still was not moving or responding. Both Lee and Chang said they thought he was asleep.
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