Inset: Dylan Raymond Strain (Ramsey County Jail). Background: The 800 block of Woodbridge Street in St. Paul, Minn., where Strain abused his twin sons (Google Maps).
A Minnesota man is headed to prison for more than a decade after he inflicted 60 fractures on his 3-month-old twin sons that will likely cause them to have developmental issues.
Dylan Raymond Strain, 20, pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree assault with great bodily harm and was sentenced to just under 16 years behind bars on Monday. The investigation began in January 2025 when the twin boys were brought to the hospital with signs of abuse. One of the boys was suffering from seizures and “very low oxygen saturation levels,” a probable cause affidavit said.
He had bleeding on the brain and bruises all over his body, as well as rib fractures in various stages of healing. In all, he had 46 fractures. The injuries “caused significant risk of death,” cops wrote.
The other boy suffered a healing laceration under his tongue and rib and clavicle fractures. He also had hemorrhaging under his eyes that could result in vision loss. He had 14 fractures.
The injuries suffered by both infants were the result of child abuse and could not be accidental, cops determined. The boys lived with their mother, grandmother and two other children at a home in the 800 block of Woodbridge Street in St. Paul.
Detectives interviewed the grandmother, who pointed the finger squarely at Strain.
“My grandbabies are in the hospital because some man don’t know how to control himself,” she said. “That man is Dylan Strain.”
The grandmother told cops she heard “hysterical crying” coming from the twins’ room. When she went to investigate, she saw one of the boys with a cut on his lip. It happened again a couple days later.
When asked to explain himself, Strain said he jammed the bottle “too hard into the baby’s mouth.” On another occasion the grandmother saw him “screaming” at both boys and saw a punched-out hole in the wall in the twins’ room.
Around the time the babies were brought to the hospital, the grandmother saw Strain holding a baby wipe to the boy’s lip. There was a pile of bloody baby wipes on the floor. Strain told her he was a “bad dad” and that he “can’t handle this.”
In an interview with cops, Strain admitted he was the “likely cause” of the twins’ injuries.
“I was a bit lackluster with my patience with the kids,” he said. “Baby crying gets me so worked up.”
Strain also admitted to squeezing the twins too tight and said he “socked the s— out of the wall.”
The kids’ mother also said whenever the boys suffered injuries it was when Strain was watching or caring for them.
“She described that Strain would hold the babies on his lap,” cops wrote. “He would yell and ‘bounce’ the babies on his lap ‘very fast.’ She agreed that the babies’ arms and legs would flail around during these incidents. She immediately grabbed the babies from him when she would see that.”
Text messages between the couple showed Strain admitted he struggles when watching the kids.
Cops arrested Strain and took him to the Ramsey County Jail, where he’s been ever since.
