Every year, more than 3.6 million calls are made to child protection agencies involving more than 6.6 million children. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention links these adverse childhood experiences, which include other household dysfunctions along with abuse and neglect, with a range of long-term health impacts.
In the following story, two teenage parents did to their daughter what was once done to them: they ignored her screams. Here’s what happened that night.
Call About A Baby
On May 14, 2017, around 11:30 a.m. Lieutenant Sam Kirby was dispatched to the Magnolia Regional Medical Center in regards to a child that had been bitten by rats. According to Arkansas Online, Lt. Kirby spoke with the ER nurse who said that the child was only 15 days old and weighed approximately 5 lbs.
Investigation
She also said that the child had been bitten at least 100 times and that the bites were severe. Upon learning what happened, Sergeant Colton Burks and Captain Todd Dew were requested to further investigate the incident. When they arrived at the hospital, they started photographing the child’s injuries.
Identification
After the baby was identified, investigators learned the parents of the child were Erica Shryock, 19, and Charles Elliott, 18. The parents, from Magnolia, Arkansas were living with their newborn at a friend’s home. They only took their child to the hospital in the first place after Elliott’s mother told them to.
Affidavit
According to the affidavit, the child’s arms, hands, and face were covered in rodent bites, with her fingers bitten as well. There was even a wound that was about one inch in diameter on the baby’s forehead, which caused her skull to be visible. It was truly horrific. Her baby blanket was even covered in blood.
Fears
At the hospital, Sergeant Burks spoke with Elliott’s mother, Regina Barton, who explained that her son told her that the baby had been bitten by a mouse. When Barton saw her grandchild, she told her son and Shryock that they must take their child to the hospital. Initially, the parents refused, afraid that their daughter might be taken away from them.
Arkansas Children’s Hospital
Barton, however, said she insisted that they had to and that’s when the baby was taken to Arkansas Children’s Hospital in Little Rock, with Detective Dustin Cloud following the ambulance there. Soon after arriving, the teenage parents who allowed their daughter to be subject to serious pain and suffering were transported to the Magnolia Police Department for questioning.
Questioning
Sergeant Burks and Captain Dew questioned Shryock first. She stated that she put her baby to sleep around 5:30 am and she woke up to her screaming at around 7:30 am. Shryock said that she got up to feed her and noticed she was covered in blood. Then, instead of immediately taking her to the hospital, Shryock put the baby back in the bassinet, which was next to the bed in her room.
Ignoring Their Child
Detectives told Shryock that the baby would have had to be screaming for a while, due to the number of bites, but she said that she knew there were rats in the house, yet did nothing to address the rodent issue. After questioning Shryock, detectives spoke with Elliott.
Blood
Elliott said that they woke up to screaming and crying at around 5 am and that’s when he saw blood everywhere. He said he got a rag to clean up and that he saw bloody rat footprints in the crib. Instead of taking action to save his child right away, Elliott waited until his mother got to the house.
Hospital
That’s when they took their child to the hospital. Elliott did admit that they hesitated to go to the hospital because he did not want his daughter to be taken away. He also admitted to knowing about the rat issue and doing nothing about it.
Search Of The Home
Shortly after questioning, the couple was arrested for endangering the welfare of a minor in the first degree. Sergeant Burks and Captain Dew then went to the friend’s residence, where the family was staying and where this incident occurred. The home belonged to Margie Williams, who gave detectives verbal and written consent to search the home.
Unbelievable Conditions
The baby’s bassinet was found in the living room, and there were blood and bloody rodent footprints in it. Then, inside the room that the couple was staying in, an infant toboggan was laying on the floor, soaked in blood. Next to the bed, where the bassinet would have been, there was a wooden cabinet covered in rodent droppings. A baby blanket was also found, with blood on it.
Emergency Room
Back at the hospital, doctors found that the infant’s wounds numbered between 75 and 100 bites. A note from a doctor at Arkansas Children’s Hospital stated that the child had “severe skin destruction from rat feeding” that would have taken “hours to occur.” The doctor believed that Elliott or Shryock must have been absent or incapacitated to not hear their child’s screams.
Drug Use
Shryock later admitted in an evaluation that she had used marijuana, the street drug K2, and methamphetamine as well as prescribed Tylenol with codeine in the week leading up to her arrest. Elliott told the evaluator that he had also smoked marijuana just before his arrest and had used methamphetamine and K2 at times in the previous year.
Forensic Evaluation
According to a forensic evaluation, Shryock and Elliott admitted to being abused as kids themselves. They reportedly both had violent childhoods that included rape and physical abuse. Unfortunately, in many cases of child abuse, neglect, or child-endangerment, the parents themselves are doing to their children what was once done to them.
Turbulent Pasts
According to the attachment theory, the quality of our early attachments profoundly influences how we behave as adults. CBC writes, “We unconsciously internalize a model of how to be a parent as we are growing up. … But what if our early experiences were less than ideal and we didn’t have good enough parents?” Dr. Julaine Brent, from the Psychology Foundation of Canada, asked.
Early Experiences
Child psychiatrist Dan Siegel suggested that parenting gives us the opportunity to reflect on our own early experiences as we create a loving bond with our children.
Difficult Childhood
“A difficult childhood doesn’t mean that you are bound to re-create negative interactions with your own children. But it takes self-understanding, an inside-out approach to parenting, to break the negative patterns of family interactions from being passed down through the generations,” CBC wrote.
Trial
Unfortunately, Shryock and Elliott didn’t have this sense of self-understanding. Somehow, they were deemed fit to stand trial despite their drug use and reportedly violent childhoods. They were sentenced to five years in prison after entering the pleas in Columbia County Circuit Court in Magnolia. They will be eligible for parole after 304 days and begin their terms with 293 days jail credit.
Children
According to Shryock’s Facebook page, the teen mother also had an older daughter, who she had in November 2015, when she was around 16 or 17 years old. While it is unclear where that child is now and if she has suffered any abuse, the 15-day old baby has since been adopted.
