Couple Charged For Abusing 4-Year-Old Child
ALLEGHENY TOWNSHIP (KDKA) -- Police have charged a Westmoreland County couple with failing to seek medical help for a 4-year-old girl who suffered suspicious injuries. Additional charges are not out of the question.
Investigators say the child in this case suffered multiple injuries on several different occasions. The couple says they came from accidents and coincidence.
Allegheny Township Police say it was early spring when they started looking at what may have happened to a 4-year-old girl inside a trailer off Hyde Park Road.
"It was brought to our attention back in April that the injuries were suspicious in nature," said John Fontaine with the Allegheny Township Police.
The child's grandmother brought the girl to the police after she picked her up from her dad's trailer. The girl had bruises all over her body and head. When questioned about the girl's injuries, the child's father, Kaleb Watt, and his girlfriend, Dannielle Statler, told investigators they were easy to explain. Fontaine says they claimed the injuries were caused by the child throwing temper tantrums and being out of control.
The girl was put in the care of her grandmother, but visited her father. But investigators say she'd come home from the visits with new injuries.
"These were more than bumps and bruises," Fontaine said. "Someone should have called for an ambulance or taken the child to an emergency room ... There were actually teeth knocked out."
When their trailer was visited, it was found to be unkept and filthy. Police charged both Watt and Statler with endangering the welfare of a child for failing to seek medical attention for the little girl.
"This is by far over the top of what I've ever seen in my career," Fontaine said.
Watt and Statler are free, awaiting their preliminary hearings, and are not allowed any contact with the child.
The child is with her grandmother, and it's likely she will stay there for a while. Meanwhile, police say they've not ruled out additional charges.
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