TAYLOR, Texas — A Taylor woman was sentenced to 14 years in prison this week after she caused a traumatic injury to a child at an illegal day care facility in her apartment in 2017.
Williamson County District Attorney Shawn Dick confirmed Tempest Coulter's sentence on Friday.
On July 6, 2017, Coulter, then 28, was arrested three weeks after medics were called to her apartment on Sloan Street for a report that a 10-month-old child was having difficulty breathing. Child Care Licensing shut down the day care on the same day the child was removed and taken to the hospital.
Police say Coulter admitted to harming the baby, which hospital staff later described as an "abusive and traumatic" brain injury.
Court documents state Coulter was caring for the child and his older sibling on that day. The mother said that when she was on her way to the hospital, the father went to Coulter's place to find out what happened. She reportedly told him the baby was in a bouncer seat and began throwing his head back, so she took him out of the seat and he started shaking, which was when she said she called medics.
Police said she later told them that she accidentally dropped the baby, but doctors said his injuries could not have been caused by a simple drop and they were more likely the result of shaking.
PEOPLE ARE ALSO READING: