Infant suffers nearly 100 rat bites, parents arrested

MAGNOLIA — After being questioned by authorities in regards to their newborn suffering 75-100 rat bites, a Magnolia couple was arrested for endangering the welfare of a minor in the first degree.

At approximately 11:30 a.m. Sunday, Magnolia Police were dispatched to the Magnolia Regional Medical Center regarding the incident. Upon speaking with emergency personnel, officers learned that the child was 15 days old, weighed approximately 5 pounds and had suffered severe rodent bites, according to a police affidavit.

Teens Erica Shryock, 19, and Charles Elliott, 18, were identified as the parents of the newborn.

Police were allowed to photograph the injuries of the child, which included bites to the feet, arms, hands and face, noting an estimated one-inch diameter wound to the infant’s forehead. The child was later transported to Arkansas Children’s Hospital in Little Rock.

While at the hospital, police questioned Elliott’s mother, Regina Barton, who explained that her son had told her that the child had been bitten by a mouse. When she saw the severity of the injuries, she told the couple that the infant needed treatment at the hospital.

Barton explained to authorities that the couple was afraid to take the infant in fear that the child would be taken away. The couple was then questioned.

Shyrock told police that she laid the infant down to sleep at approximately 5:30 a.m. that morning in a bassinet that was placed next to the bed that she and Elliott slept in. Two hours later, Shyrock was awoken to the infant crying and got up, discovering the infant covered in blood.

Detectives advised Shyrock that the infant would have been screaming for an extended period of time, given the amount of bites that the infant suffered. Shryock told police that she knew of a rodent problem in the house, but that neither she nor Elliott had done anything to address the issue, according to the affidavit.

Detectives then questioned Elliott, who advised them that the infant had woke he and Shyrock up at approximately 5 a.m. and that they saw blood. After retrieving a rag to clean the blood, he noticed bloody rat footprints in the bassinet. He contacted his mother and waited until she arrived at their home before taking the infant to the hospital at 9 a.m.

He admitted that they were afraid to take the infant to the hospital out of fear of having the child taken away and acknowledged that there was a rodent problem but had failed to seek a solution to the problem.

The couple was arrested and police drove to the home where the incident occurred, where they discovered another resident at the home, Margie Williams. Williams gave detectives consent to search the home and the bassinet was found in the living room.

Police noted that there were blood and bloody rodent footprints in the basinet.

Upon searching in the couple’s room, a bloodsoaked infants cap was found lying on the floor, rat droppings on a wooden cabinet next to the bed and a baby blanket spotted with blood.

Williams told detectives that she woke up to the infant crying at 5:30 a.m. and upon inspection, noticed the wound to the child’s head and that the blood was dry.

“Williams stated that she does not know how the parents did not wake up because the baby was sleeping right beside them,” the affidavit states.

On Tuesday, detectives received doctor notes that stated that there was “severe skin destruction from rat feeding, and stated that it would have taken hours to occur and the patient would have been in distress during the process.”

The doctor noted that the parents would have either been absent or incapacitated to not have responded to the infant’s cries and that there were an estimated 75-100 bites on the body.

On Monday, the child underwent facial reconstructive surgery to repair the wound to her head.