A Connecticut man has been arrested for allegedly abusing a one-month-old baby, state police said Tuesday.
Zachary Beausoleil, 22, of Pomfret is charged with causing “multiple physical injuries to a minor” in an incident that occurred just over a year ago.
According to authorities, on August 4, 2023, a one-month-old infant was admitted to Day Kimball Hospital, an acute care facility in the town of Putnam, “because she had not eaten for an extended period of time.”
After doctors examined the child, they found “several critical injuries,” including “multiple rib fractures” and “active cerebral hemorrhages,” according to an arrest warrant obtained by local CBS affiliate WFSB. The infant was then immediately taken to a hospital in Massachusetts, where further tests revealed that she also appeared to have suffered a laceration to her liver.
Detectives from the State Police Eastern District Major Crime Squad were also notified and took over the investigation.
Later that day, a Massachusetts General Hospital social worker told an investigator that the child had arrived at the emergency room with “injuries consistent with shaking baby syndrome, which is described by the Centers for Disease and Control as a “severe form of physical child abuse resulting from an infant being violently shaken by the shoulders, arms, or legs.”
When Beausoleil was interviewed by police, he said that in the early hours of August 1, 2023, he woke up to the baby crying. Shortly after picking her up from the crib, Beausoleil said he tripped and fell on top of the child.
He said he “didn’t think his full weight landed on her,” according to the affidavit. After checking on the infant, he saw no injuries and “thought she was fine.”
Three days later, while Beausoleil was at work, another adult in the house took the child to the hospital after she stopped eating and started “acting a little off,” according to the warrant.
A subsequent review of Beausoleil’s phone revealed web searches for the phrases “fluid-filled bump on baby’s head” and “throwing up green bile” shortly after the incident, police said.
Beausoleil was arrested on Monday after a “lengthy” investigation. That’s him held on $100,000 bond, and was scheduled to appear in Danielson Superior Court later Tuesday, according to Patch Connecticut.