LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Christian Miller allegedly told police that his uncontrollable mood led him to hold a blanket over a child’s face in an attempt to muffle the toddler’s cries, leading prosecutors to charge Miller with multiple crimes in connection with the abuse.
On Sept. 23, Tippecanoe County sheriff’s deputies were called to an area hospital for a report of possible child abuse, according to a probable cause affidavit filed this week. A woman told officers that after picking up her two children from Miller, she discovered bruises on her 2-year-old’s shoulders and neck.
After photographing the child’s injuries, the mother took her child to his pediatrician, who then referred her to the local hospital, where police were contacted. A strangulation examination was performed on the toddler, prosecutors said, which showed his injuries were consistent with strangulation.
A forensic nurse observed petechiae, which are dark spots on the skin caused by broken capillaries, around the toddler’s neck, under his neck and behind his ears. When the mother asked Miller about the injuries, he told her he noticed them as a rash while giving the toddler a bath, the affidavit said.
In an interview with the toddler’s 4-year-old brother, police said the brother said he saw Miller choke his brother while they were at Miller’s home, prosecutors said, and that his brother couldn’t breathe.
Police also interviewed a relative of the child’s mother, who told police she also witnessed small red dots around the toddler’s neck after he returned from Miller’s home, prosecutors said. The family member told police that the dots looked like blood blisters, but they did not look like a rash.
On Oct. 28, police interviewed Miller, who told them he has an uncontrollable temper, prosecutors said. Miller told police that while the child was in his care in September, the toddler would not stop crying or go to sleep, despite Miller’s attempts to calm him down.
Miller then folded the child’s blanket and held it over the toddler’s face, he told police, in an attempt to “muffle his crying,” prosecutors said. Miller allegedly told police he used his right hand to push the blanket onto the toddler’s face and hold him there until the child’s screams subsided.
Miller is charged with battery causing serious bodily injury, battery causing bodily harm to a person under 14 years old, battery causing bodily harm to a person under 14 years old, and strangulation. Miller is being held in the Tippecanoe County Jail on a $5,000 cash bond and a $50,000 bond.
Jillian Ellison is a reporter for the Journal and Courier. She can be reached via email at jellison@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared in the Lafayette Journal & Courier: Lafayette man charged with child abuse after allegedly strangling child
