Thursday, May 26th 2016, 1:41 pm
Police say a Tulsa woman admitted to "losing it" with her 7-month-old son who died of his injuries Thursday.
Ruth Lewis said the baby was crying in the middle of the night and she gave him "whoopings," shook him and pushed him to the ground before going back to bed, according to an affidavit of probable cause.
Lewis, 21, was originally charged with child abuse by injury and two counts of child neglect while the 7-month-old child was in a coma. Officers said, at the time, if the condition of the child changed the charges could be modified.
Lewis, who lives in the 1600 block of East Young Place, told police she got up in the night to smoke a cigarette and heard her son crying. After yelling at him and "whooping" him a few times, she put him in a bouncer, a detective said.
She admitted to jerking the bouncer and shaking the baby, records show.
"When asked if his head was injured during the shaking she responded, 'no, it did whip back though,'" the affidavit states.
The detective said the baby then fell out of the bouncer and Lewis said she picked him up and pushed him to the ground. "He quieted down" after that, she reportedly told the officer.
5/25/2016 Related Story: Tulsa Mother Arrested For Child Abuse, Child Neglect
Lewis told police she left the baby and went back to bed. Police say her brother, who lives with Lewis and the child's father, found the baby unresponsive around 5:15 a.m. That's when an ambulance was called.
Pediatricians at the hospital said the baby had a skull fracture, subdural hematomas, retinal hemorrhages and hypothermia. He was also in cardiac arrest and acute respiratory failure.
A second child, a 1-year-old girl, had severe diaper rash.
Lewis is being held without bond.
May 26th, 2016
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