CALIFORNIA, Pa. — The Washington County District Attorney has charged a man with attempted homicide in the assault of a 1-year-old child he was supposed to be babysitting.
The DA tells Channel 11 the child remains at Children’s Hospital five weeks after he was found unconscious in his California Borough home. The mother’s boyfriend, Lyndon Henderson, was originally arrested and charged with assault, but that has now been upgraded to attempted homicide.
“My office will always seek justice for victims. Children are innocent and our most vulnerable, and I will prosecute offenders who commit crimes against them vigorously and to the fullest extent the law allows,” said district attorney Jason Walsh.
Channel 11 spoke to the paternal grandmother after Lyndon’s arrest. She describes the baby as a happy, go-lucky child who didn’t deserve this.
Carla Darrell is horrified after what happened to her 1-year-old grandson, Kybrel.
“It wasn’t good. He was on all kinds of machines. He was beat like a man. A man beat my grandson,” said Darrell. “He didn’t do [anything.] There was nothing possible he could’ve [done] to do this to him.”
According to state police, the California Borough Police Department was originally called to a home along 3rd Street on Saturday afternoon after the 1-year-old stopped breathing. The little boy was rushed to the hospital where he was put onto a ventilator because his brain was deprived of oxygen and swelling. The little boy also suffered a stroke and has a broken vertebra in his neck. Police say the mother’s boyfriend, Lyndon Henderson had been watching Kybrel while his mother was at work.
“If someone would’ve called my son to come get his son he would have went and got his son to watch him,” Darrell said. “Nobody else had to watch him. We would’ve watched him.”
When questioned by Belle Vernon troopers, the 24-year-old told authorities that he watched the child when his girlfriend went to work early Saturday morning. Henderson told authorities that the child fell off the couch onto the floor after spinning him around in circles and placing him on the couch.
The criminal complaint quotes the doctor who treated Kybrel saying: “The brain injury sustained by the victim is 100% unequivocally the result of child abuse.”
Henderson was arrested Sunday night for assaulting the child. He remains in the Washington County Jail under no bond.
“I don’t believe he belongs out of jail. He belongs there. He belongs where he deserves. He deserves in there,” said Darrell.
Kybrel was also placed on a feeding tube in a medically induced coma as he recovers.
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