January 12, 2012
A teenage pregnant mother has been accused of battering her six-month-old baby so badly that his bones were broken 15 times.
Ruth Zuluaga, 19, who is two months pregnant, was arrested after her son was found to have the breaks in 13 of his bones; including six ribs, all three major bones in his right arm, the right femur and both legs.
Her boyfriend Josue Cubero – who is not the boy’s father – called for an ambulance when he noticed the baby’s arm was limp at their home in Barre, Massachusetts last month.
The baby was taken to the University of Massachusetts Medical Center in Worcester for treatment, reports the Telegram and Gazette.
It was here, over two weeks, doctors discovered what police called ‘a multitude of injuries that, even individually, are not spontaneous in nature.’
The injuries were in various stages of healing, doctors told police, reports reports the Telegram and Gazette.
Mr Cubero, who referred to the boy as his step-son, told police he never saw Zuluaga, who has been hospitalised for mental problems three times, harm the child.
But at the time her son was taken in for treatment, Zuluaga herself was in hospital for making ‘self-harming’ statements, the report states.
The state Department of Children and Families took custody of the baby.
With a warrant out for her arrest for harming her child, Zuluaga was released from hospital and returned home on Tuesday to allegedly attack her boyfriend with an eight inch knife and threaten to cut herself.
Mr Cubero was forced to call the police again and she was charged with assault and battery, assault with a dangerous weapon, permitting injury to a child and permitting substantial injury to a child.
Mr Cubero said he was introduced to Zuluaga when she was discharged from a mental hospital.
She had been living in a shelter and he invited her to move in with him.
Both he and Zuluaga told police that she is the primary caretaker for the child and Mr Cubero is never alone with him.
She was arraigned yesterday in Western Worcester District Court and was ordered to be held on $50,000 bail.
Zuluaga is due to appear in court on February 7 for a pretrial hearing.
Source: widk.com
