"Jane" ERICKSON - 5 yo - Eagle Mountain UT

by TomTerrific0420 Sat Mar 27, 2010 1:24 pm

Eagle Mountain UT ---- An Eagle Mountain woman is behind bars charged with
brutally beating and strangling her adopted 5-year-old daughter. The injuries
were so severe, investigators say that the girl barely made it through the
night, "they did have to remove a portion of her skull in an effort to relieve
some of the pressure from the brain swelling," says Spencer Cannon of the Utah
County Sheriff's office, "they weren't sure she would survive the night at that
point," says Cannon.

Cannon says it all started Sunday morning when
Leslie and Gary Erickson brought the badly injured girl to the Eagle Mountain
Fire Department, "(the couple) told them (emergency workers) their daughter had
fallen and hurt herself," but according to the sheriff's office, it didn't take
long for doctors to determine that something very different had happened, "the
injuries, the doctors say she sustained blunt force trauma to the head and had
injuries that were consistent with strangulation," says Cannon.

Deputies
went into the couple's Eagle Mountain home where, we are told, two of the
couple's other children displayed signs of abuse as well. Seven of the
Erickson's eight children were removed from the home and are in the care of
DCFS.

Deputies say other charges are possible, the little girl remains in
critical condition at Primary Children's Medical
Center.