Couple to serve time in jail
Christopher Berger, Sara Schmidt sentenced in child endangerment case
A Hatfield man and woman each will spend several months in jail in connection with two incidents during which prosecutors alleged they endangered and neglected their children.
Christopher Ryan Berger, 31, and Sara Diane Schmidt, 28, both of the 3400 block of Orvilla Road, each was sentenced this week in Montgomery County Court to three-to-23-months in the county jail after they pleaded guilty to multiple misdemeanor charges of endangering the welfare of children in connection with incidents that occurred between May and September 2016.
Judge Gary S. Silow ordered Berger to report to jail on June 25 to begin serving his sentence. Schmidt must report to jail on Oct. 15 to begin serving her sentence. The pair will be eligible for work release during their incarcerations.
The judge said the pair is prohibited from having any unsupervised contact with children under 14 years old unless approved by county Office of Children and Youth officials.
An investigation began May 15, 2016, when Hatfield police responded to the Orvilla Road home for a report of a fire alarm sounding and “three children screaming on the steps and no parents were on location,” according to a criminal complaint. Police determined the children, ages 2, 5 and 6, had been left home unattended.
“The children had become alarmed when a fire/smoke detector started sounding in the home
so they exited screaming and a passing motorist stopped to help them,” Hatfield Township Detective Sgt. John A. Ciarlello wrote in the arrest affidavit, adding the 2-year-old needed a diaper change and the children claimed they had been home alone for about two hours.
Relatives of the children arrived at the home and took custody of them, court documents indicate. Officials of the county’s Office of Children and Youth also arrived at the home.
Police said the inside of the home was “filthy” with hunting arrows and power tools within reach of the children and animal feces on the floor. Police said a “dirty” pot-bellied pig was sleeping on the couch.
In September 2016, township police learned from child social workers that the couple’s 5-week-old son had sustained a head injury on Sept. 18, which required the parents to take him to Grandview Hospital for treatment. The child was later transferred to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, court documents
indicate.
Grand View Hospital personnel, according to a criminal complaint, told police that Berger and Schmidt informed emergency room staff that the infant’s 6-year-old brother had been holding the baby on the couch when the family’s dog jumped onto the couch and hit the infant in the head with either its head or paw. Tests showed the boy had two skull fractures and hemorrhages, according to the arrest affidavit.
CHOP doctors told investigators that a dog causing such severe injuries to the infant was “very suspicious and unusual” but that they could not rule it out “with 100-percent certainty,” according to the criminal complaint.
On Sept. 19, according to court documents, detectives spoke to Berger and Schmidt at their home and the pair claimed the child’s injury was caused by the dog jumping on the couch.
During subsequent interviews with two of the couple’s other children at the Mission Kids Child Advocacy Center, forensic investigators were told by one child that Berger instructed him to tell people who asked “that he didn’t
remember what happened,” according to the criminal complaint. The children also contradicted some of the statements given to police by Schmidt.
A child welfare worker assigned to make five weekly visits to Berger and Schmidt’s residence after the May incident told detectives that during a Sept. 15 visit he saw that the newborn baby had severe diaper rash and ordered Schmidt to take the child to the doctor for treatment, according to the arrest affidavit.
Forensic investigators at Mission Kids spoke to the 6-year-old boy a second time on Sept. 26 regarding the incident involving his 5-week-old brother and the family dog. At that time, the boy disclosed that he was on the couch feeding the infant and the family’s pet pig was also on the couch when Berger allegedly went to knock the pig off the couch and struck the infant instead, according to the criminal complaint.
The boy claimed Berger told him not to tell anyone what happened “and to blame it on the dog and not the pig,” according to the criminal complaint.
During further questioning by detectives, according to court documents, Schmidt admitted she hadn’t actually witnessed the incident, while Berger maintained that the dog had jumped up on the couch and hit the baby, and that in trying to get the dog off the couch “his right
hand may have struck [the infant’s] head.”
Investigators said that based on “a considerable amount of inconsistencies” in the explanations provided by Berger and Schmidt; the belief that the 6-year-old “was directed
by [Berger] not to discuss the incident”; and “all the child neglect demonstrated by Sara Schmidt and Christopher Berger that was learned through this investigation,” authorities decided to file charges against the couple.