COLLEGE STATION, Texas — A College Station woman has been arrested for allegedly causing a 5-month-old child to suffer severe injuries to his head and body.
Berta Lopez-Vasquez, 20, is charged with injury to a child. She's accused of throwing the baby against the wall, shaking him several times and throwing him up in the air and letting him drop to the floor.
Investigators with the College Station Police Department talked with Lopez-Vasquez on January 20. She allegedly told them the parents of the boy dropped him off at her home on January 19 just after 9 a.m. and he did not have injuries and was not sick.
Lopez-Vasquez said the boy started to cry shortly after the parents left her home and would not stop all day. By 4:30 p.m., Lopez-Vasquez allegedly said she began tossing the baby in the air to try to get him to stop crying. She allegedly admitted he slipped out of her hands a few times and landed on his head on the floor. At one point, Lopez-Vasquez said the baby began convulsing and his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he stopped breathing.
Lopez-Vasquez said she called her husband, who then came over to the home. She told investigators her husband said the baby needed to go to the hospital immediately, but Lopez-Vasquez allegedly said she did not want to take him because she was "not his mother." She also allegedly told investigators she did not want to get into trouble and have her children taken away.
Lopez-Vasquez then allegedly called the boy's parents and said he needed to go to the hospital and they had to come and pick him up. The boy's parents arrived and took him to the hospital in College Station, but the boy eventually was transferred to a hospital in Houston due to his injuries.
Doctors told investigators on January 28, the baby boy continued to suffer seizures and is on a breathing tube. He has fractures to his head and bruising to his forehead and left eye. The baby also suffered head trauma so severe, a portion of his skull had to be removed due to pressure built up during a brain bleed.
After investigators confronted Lopez-Vasquez with the injuries, she allegedly said she had called the boy's parents around 4 p.m. and said they had to come get him because he would not stop crying and she was getting frustrated. Lopez-Vasquez said the parents told her they could not come until after 10 p.m. when they got off of work. Lopez-Vasquez allegedly told investigators she was angry and "lost it" and began shaking the baby violently in an effort to make him stop crying.
When the baby didn't stop, Lopez-Vasquez allegedly said she threw the baby against the wall at least three times with force.
Lopez-Vasquez is currently in the Brazos County Jail on $200,000 bond.