REDDING, Calif. — A Shasta County man is facing charges of extreme child abuse while his infant lies in a Sacramento-area hospital.
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Christopher Hasley, 39, sat quietly throughout his preliminary hearing that took several hours on Thursday. Among witnesses was his significant other, Tiffany Talbott, who had two of his children. When she returned after being gone, she said Hasley told her the older child was trying to feed the younger one and the baby fell out of the bed. However, he later changed his story, saying the younger child had fallen down the stairs. Talbott said when she tried to feed her child, she knew something was wrong.
“I just monitored her until it was time for her next feeding and that’s when . . . that’s when I was like: ‘no there’s something wrong,'” said Talbott.
“Well, why did you think that there was something wrong?” asked the attorney.
“Um…I had never heard my children cry the way she was crying. She was just screaming, she wouldn’t eat, and I never had a problem with her eating before. And it was her feeding time and she just, she screamed. She just sat there and screamed; a scream that I never heard before,” added Talbott.
Shasta County Sheriff’s Detective Andrew Page interviewed a pediatric emergency medicine and child maltreatment physician from UC Davis Medical Center, who described the infant’s injuries.
“She had multiple hemorrhages, retinal hemorrhages, and she also had retinal tears in both her eyes . . . My understanding is that she is currently blind . . . The doctor explained that she had brain swelling, she also stated that there’s diffused cellular death throughout the brain in some spots more than others and that they were able to positively identify it came from a event of lack of oxygen or starvation of oxygen,” Page said.
Hasley’s arraignment is set for February 23.
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