NAPPANEE, Ind. (WANE) — Five people have been charged with felony child neglect in a northern Indiana county after a boy was found with signs of severe abuse throughout his body.
The abuse: clumps of the boy’s scalp was missing, his septum had been cut out, both of his arms had multiple fractures, and more, according to court documents.
The case began in March 2018, when Nappanee Police responded to a home on a report of a child in need of service.
At the home, police spoke with the boy’s mother, Rune Springer, and stepfather, Travis Tillotson, who said the boy had been under the care of Jammy Stacy for the previous six months and she had brought him back the day prior. Stacy and her mother, Annette Priestley, dropped the boy off at Springer’s home on March 1, 2018, “with visible injuries all over his body,” according to court documents.
Both Springer and Tillotson told police they did not call police immediately because Stacy told her they’d both be arrested for child abuse, the court documents said.
The boy was eventually taken to Parkview Hospital in Fort Wayne. There, doctors said the boy had injuries in many stages of healing that had occurred over an extended area of time, documents showed.
The boy had pieces of his scalp missing, his septum had been cut out, it appeared fingernails had been dug into his cheek and skin was missing from the bridge of his nose, the report said.
Doctors also found his arms had been broken in multiple places and his arm sockets were broken to the point he could not raise his hands over his shoulders, the report said.
The boy’s teeth were broken from trauma, his lower lip had been cut deep, and he was “extremely” underweight and malnourished and had hematomas to the head and “critically low” blood labs, the report said.
The boy’s injuries appeared to range from several months old to a few days old, the report said.
One doctor said if the boy had not gotten treatment when he did, he would have died within 48 hours, the report said.
Police learned that Stacy had taken the boy in in October 2017 and was his sole caregiver from then until he was returned to Springer March 1, 2018. Stacy said the boy would occasionally stay with her aunt, Fayette Robinette, and visited her mother, Priestley, regularly.
Police found images of the boy on Stacy’s cell phone that showed visible injuries and malnourishment, to which Stacy “took no action to seek medical help” for the boy, the documents said.
It’s not clear how old the boy was at the time.
Stacy, Robinette, Springer and Priestley were all arrested and charged with Level 3 felony Neglect of a Dependent Resulting in Serious Bodily Injury. Tillotson was arrested on a charge of Level 6 felony Neglect of a Dependent.
