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Local man charged in toddler's beating
GREENCASTLE -- A Greencastle man has been charged with Class D felony battery resulting in bodily injury in connection with an incident involving an 18-month-old boy.
Anthony M. Cox, 22, was arrested Wednesday. He was released from jail after posting 10 percent of a $5,000 bond.
According to court documents, authorities were notified of a possible child abuse situation when the alleged victim's mother took the boy to the Putnam County Hospital emergency room on May 11.
The boy's mother told police she and her son lived with Cox, and that on that day the mother left the couple's residence to attend classes at about 7:30 a.m., leaving the alleged victim in Cox's care.
Twenty minutes after the alleged victim's mother left the home, an affidavit of probable cause said, Cox called her to tell her he had spanked the alleged victim for getting out of bed.
Cox went on to tell the alleged victim's mother that when the child went to get back into his bed, the child had tripped and struck his head on a floor heater.
The alleged victim's mother came home about three hours later and took her son to the emergency room. She told police that she had observed no injuries on her son when she had left for school.
Charles Bollinger, an investigator for the Putnam County Prosecutor's Office, said he found several injuries on the child, including a welt on the back of the right leg just below the buttocks that appeared to be in the form of a handprint, welts and redness to the left leg just below the buttocks and broken blood vessels below the skin, swelling and bruising to the left side of the forehead, face and eye area.
Cox was interviewed shortly afterward, and said the alleged victim had awakened him, and that Cox instructed the boy to return to bed. When the child refused, court records said, Cox told police he struck the child with an open hand to the back of the child's legs, but that he had meant to hit him on his diaper.
"Anthony Cox states he could have hit (the alleged victim) on two occasions," the affidavit said.
No further court dates have yet been set in the case. If convicted, Cox could be sentenced to three years in prison.