Background: Baxter Regional Medical Center in Mountain Home, Ark. (Google Maps). Inset: Tessa Jonell Thompson (Baxter County Jail).
An Arkansas woman who took in someone else”s children was charged with murder after the baby in her care died following a brain bleed.
Tessa Jonell Thompson, 29, was charged with second-degree murder on Thursday after she was arrested last month in connection with the death of a baby boy she had taken into her home. According to a probable cause affidavit reviewed by Law&Crime, the baby was transported to Baxter Regional Medical Center in Mountain Home, a city around 150 miles north of Little Rock, from Thompson’s home in nearby Midway on the afternoon of Aug. 29 after a call to dispatchers about a baby “barely breathing.”
An investigator from the Baxter County Sheriff’s Office arrived at the hospital to find the baby intubated with “obvious bruising on the right side of his face.” Hospital staff told the investigator that upon arrival, the bruise had been covered with makeup, “like someone was attempting to conceal the injury.”
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According to the affidavit, the baby was diagnosed with a brain bleed and was transferred to a children’s hospital in Little Rock. On Aug. 30, after a day on life support, the baby was pronounced dead.
Police interviewed Thompson, who explained that she had been caring for the baby boy and his 2-year-old sister for about a week and a half because the children’s biological mother “did not have a stable home.” Also living in Thompson’s home was her 5-year-old daughter and her mother. When Thompson’s mother brought the two other children to the sheriff’s office, the investigator noticed that the 2-year-old had a “large bruise” on her cheek that he believed was caused by a “hand, fist, or object.”
Thompson reportedly admitted she became “upset” and “slammed” the baby while he was in his playpen. Thompson allegedly claimed she “pushed the infant down” and he “hit the back of his head,” but the investigator pointed out the baby had a visible bruise on the front of his face. Thompson then admitted that she struck the infant “hard with an open palm” earlier in the day, the affidavit says.
After waiting “10-15 minutes,” Thompson told police that she “put makeup on the child to try to cover the injury.” She then noticed that the baby was not breathing.
When it came to the bruise on the 2-year-old girl, Thompson admitted that she hit the little girl in the face “because she was upset that she was crying.”
Police placed Thompson under arrest; the 2-year-old girl was handed over to a friend of her biological mother, and Thompson’s 5-year-old daughter was placed in the custody of the Arkansas Department of Human Services.
Thompson was charged with second-degree murder, first-degree domestic battery causing serious injury, and second-degree domestic battery. She is currently in custody at the Baxter County Jail where she is being held on $100,000 bond.
