Infant showed signs of abuse
Police report says mother changed story about injuries
Las Vegas police said doctors found signs of physical abuse when 10-month-old Atlas Culliver was transported to the hospital in October.
His mother, 25-year-old Jonaee Brown, was arrested Wednesday on a murder charge, a little more than a week after the investigation into his death was opened.
The investigation began Oct. 20, when Metropolitan Police Department officers were called to Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center.
According to Brown’s arrest report, when Atlas arrived at the hospital unconscious and not breathing, doctors learned that he had a brain bleed and other suspicious injuries, including a swollen frontal lobe, a large bump on the back of his head, an old fracture on his left wrist, hemorrhaging in his left eye and a visible bruise on his forehead.
He was pronounced dead just after 12:40 p.m. the next day. Brown, who has two other children with her husband, was the primary caretaker of the couple’s children while her husband worked. When emergency personnel were requested to their home on the 5100 block of Spyglass Hill Drive on Oct. 20, police said, Brown was home alone with the children.
In an interview with Metro abuse and neglect detectives, Brown’s story detailing the events leading up to her son’s hospitalization changed at least twice, her arrest report showed.
Brown told police that Atlas often banged his head against walls, and that she had heard him banging his head multiple times on Oct. 20. In the same interview, according to the report, Brown later told police she grew frustrated while trying to teach Atlas how to walk but “never took it too far.”
“If I did go too far, I didn’t mean to do it,” she then said.
Multiple times in the interview, according to the report, she cried and expressed that she “may have gone too far.” In the recorded police interview, Brown at one point asked police to take her to jail, “but only because she was the adult in the house,” her arrest report detailed.
Atlas’ official cause and manner of death have not yet been determined by the Clark County coroner’s office. His death was the 207th homicide in the county this year, and the 184th investigated by Metro.
Brown is being held without bail at the Clark County Detention Center.
Contact Rio Lacanlale at rlacanlale@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0381. Follow @riolacanlale on Twitter.