3-year-old found stiff, bruised, emaciated, IN cops say. Dad, girlfriend charged
_fitted.png "A 3-year-old girl is fighting for her life after officials say she was found stiff, emaciated and bruised in her father and stepmother’s care.")
Two people are charged with neglect after authorities say a 3-year-old girl was abused in Indiana, leaving her with likely fatal injuries.
Joshua Cajigas, 24, is charged with neglect of a dependent, battery and domestic battery, according to court records. His girlfriend, Mellie Jackson, 22, is charged with neglect of a dependent, court records show.
McClatchy News was unable to reach Cajigas’ and Jackson’s attorneys for comment.
The charges stem from an incident on Aug. 7 when Indianapolis police were called to a home after an incomplete 911 call was made, the police department said in an Aug. 13 Facebook post.
The person who called told dispatchers a child fell and was unresponsive, but dispatchers weren’t able to get back in touch with the caller when the call failed, police said.
When police arrived, they reported finding a “stiff, unresponsive, and emaciated child covered in bruises.”
The 3-year-old was soaking wet when police found her, WISH reported. Her father, Cajigas, told officers he jumped in a cold shower with her to try and wake her after she went unconscious, according to the news outlet.
Gajigas and Jackson told police the girl hit her head while trying to pick up her 1-year-old cousin and that her bruises were from a bookshelf that fell on her, WISH reported.
The girl, identified by WXIN as Luna, was taken to a hospital with a brain bleed and doctors said she had the lowest coma score possible before a person is declared brain dead, the news outlet reported.
“When I first saw her, I felt like it was unreal,” the girl’s biological mother, Lexus Burnette, told WXIN. “I’m just here fighting for her, but she’s fighting for her life.”
Burnette told the news outlet she lost custody of Luna and hadn’t seen her since May. She reportedly said she warned the court that Luna was being abused but she was ignored, the outlet reported.
“This could have been preventable if people had just listened to me. She’s fighting for her life, and this is not fair. She should not be in here like this,” Burnette told the IndyStar.
Cajigas told detectives he and Jackson would “whoop” Luna and make her do “discipline drills,” such as wall squats, running and standing on a wall, because the 3-year-old “can be disrespectful and she also pees the bed multiple times a night,” WTHR reported.
Despite Luna having injuries on her entire body, according to doctors, the couple told detectives they only beat her with a belt on her legs and butts, WTHR reported. They also said an injury to her head may have been caused by the bookshelf falling on her, the outlet reported from court documents.
However, doctors told detectives Luna’s injuries were not consistent with “standing height fall or falling backwards,” according to the outlet.
Detectives said she has a “very high probability of death,” WISH reported.
“They could have protected her, and they didn’t,” Burnette told WXIN. “Instead, they tormented her.”
