Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah (Google Maps).
A Utah mother is in jail after she brought her 4-month-old daughter to the hospital with injuries that led medical staff to call the police.
Lizbeth Hurtado-Breton, 36, was charged with child torture and aggravated child abuse and arrested on Tuesday. According to court documents obtained by Salt Lake City-based NBC affiliate KSL, Hurtado-Breton and her husband, whose name was not made public, brought their 4-month-old baby girl to Primary Children’s Hospital on Tuesday with severe burns on her face. While the baby was being examined, medical staff also observed “several bone fractures and a brain bleed,” as well as other injuries in various stages of healing.
When police spoke to the baby’s father about the burns, he reportedly explained that Hurtado-Breton was trying a “home remedy” that involved holding the baby over a steaming pot. But according to the police, when Hurtado-Breton rubbed the baby’s face with a napkin, it “wiped off skin.”
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According to the court documents, Hurtado-Breton’s husband told police that he once came home to find “tape covering the baby’s mouth.” He asked her for an explanation, and she allegedly said that the baby “would not stop crying.”
Police said that Hurtado-Breton’s alleged abuse towards the infant also included, according to the father, taping the baby’s arms behind her back during feedings and “shoving a baby bottle down the baby’s face causing the baby to choke on the milk and not be able to breathe.” He reportedly provided video and photographic proof of the alleged force-feeding and taping.
During his interview with police, the baby’s father reportedly told them that Hurtado-Breton “wished the baby would have been a boy and believes this is why Lizbeth has been so awful to the baby and not awful to the older siblings.”
When police spoke to Hurtado-Breton about the alleged steaming, which was hot enough to burn her baby’s face, she reportedly said “her hands were feeling ‘very hot’ while she did this but she did not think about how the steam would feel” on the baby’s face. She also allegedly said that taping the baby’s mouth to “hold her pacifier in place” was the “easiest” option for her.
KUTV, a local CBS affiliate, also obtained the court documents, which stated that when Hurtado-Breton was asked about how the baby could have received the other injuries, she allegedly responded that she “couldn’t remember.”
Hurtado-Breton was arrested on Tuesday and charged with child torture and aggravated child abuse. She remains in custody at the Salt Lake County Jail.
