Un-named Baby - 7 Months - Fort Wayne -IN

I must be going mad Tom becuase I can't find this story anywhere but I know it's here somewhere. I'll put this here for now.
Published: September 14, 2010 3:00 a.m.
12 years in skull-fracture neglect case


Angela Mapes Turner | The Journal Gazette



A 21-year-old Fort Wayne mother convicted last month of neglecting her infant son was sentenced Monday to 12 years in prison.Tiffany Otten left her 7-month-old in the care of her boyfriend, Joshua B. Johnson, while she went to Marion to pick up methadone from a clinic.Police found evidence of drug use throughout her home, according to trial testimony.Otten took her son to Parkview Hospital’s emergency room with what she said was a possible case of pinkeye, but the baby actually had two skull fractures so severe he required surgery. Medical testimony offered during the trial indicated the baby’s head was so swollen it felt like a “water balloon,” and evidence suggested neglect, prosecutors said. But Otten and Johnson offered conflicting stories about how the injuries occurred.Otten initially told authorities she didn’t know how the baby got injured, then said he may have fallen off the bed a few days before she brought him to the emergency room. At one point, she told police the child’s brother – 2 years old at the time – threw a ball at the baby’s head, according to court documents.Prosecutors charged Otten and Johnson each with a single count of neglect of a dependent, alleging they had placed the baby in a situation that endangered his health.Johnson, of the 2400 block of Fairoak Drive, accepted a plea agreement last month with prosecutors following Otten’s jury conviction. He faces a six-year prison sentence if the plea agreement is accepted by a judge.The couple lived in a home full of drug abuse, including prescriptions and methadone, according to testimony at Otten’s trial.Otten’s mother told Allen Superior Judge Fran Gull her daughter had lacked a support system in Indiana, and defense attorney John Bohdan referred to her “dysfunctional upbringing” as a factor in her poor decision-making.Bohdan maintained Otten did not play a direct role in the baby’s injuries and did not know what was wrong with the baby, leading to the delay in taking him to the hospital.As Bohdan argued for a lenient sentence, Otten cried quietly and she mouthed silent thanks to a sheriff’s deputy guarding the defendants’ box who stood to pass her a tissue.“Her children have been taken from her,” Bohdan said. “Her rights have been terminated.”