Olympia woman charged after allegedly abusing three-year-old child

An Olympia woman was charged after allegedly abusing her three-year-old son to unconsciousness.

Information from the Thurston County Jail shows that the woman, 40, is being held on $200,000 bail for the charges of first-degree criminal mistreatment, third-degree assault of a child, first-degree assault of a child, and tampering with a witness.

The woman’s boyfriend and the father of the child is also being held on a $50,000 bail at the Thurston County Jail for first-degree criminal mistreatment.

According to Olympia police, officers were dispatched last Tue., Feb. 22, to a report of an unresponsive child.

The woman initially told police that she assumed her three-year-old son fell when she found him on the bathroom floor.

Police noted, however, that the child had bruises all over his body and that the woman had “significant difficulty” in answering questions about the incident.

Confronted about the bruises, the woman admitted that she gets frustrated with her son and “grabs” his arm during discipline.

The suspect also said that she sometimes uses a baby gate to lock her son in the bathroom for extended periods of time and that she punishes him for “stealing” food from the refrigerator by denying him several meals.

The woman insisted on her story about her son falling in the bathroom, even after police told her that the injuries were inconsistent with her account.

Meanwhile, the child's father initially told police that his girlfriend and their son were in the bathroom when the three-year-old fell.

After the father received a phone call from the doctor informing him that the child had a brain bleed and was unlikely to survive, he admitted that his girlfriend is consistently abusive of their son.

He said she forcefully slammed their son down into a playpen because she was frustrated with him for not getting dressed in the morning.

The woman then took their son to the bathroom, the man told police, and the two of them unsuccessfully attempted to wake the child using cold water.

The man said he decided to call 911 at this point, but the woman allegedly convinced him not to. She later suggested he tell police that their son “was in the bathroom and fell off the bathroom counter.”

Police said the man admitted to being aware of his girlfriend's physical abuse of their son, which he said has been going on for months.

The child weighed 35 pounds in November 2021 but weighed only 24 pounds when he arrived at the Seattle Children’s Hospital on Feb. 22, according to police.

The child and his sibling lived with the woman’s sister for two years after they were taken by Child Protective Services. The two kids were returned to the woman’s custody in October 2021.

Police say a doctor told them that the child was significantly dehydrated, and his malnutrition was so severe that he had started to lose his hair.

The doctor also said the three-year-old suffered blunt force trauma to both sides of his brain, an injury consistent with the woman’s alleged forceful slamming of him.

Police were also advised that there were trace amounts of marijuana in the child’s bloodstream.

The doctor said it was highly unlikely that the child would survive, adding that his case was one of the most severe cases of abuse the hospital staff had seen in their career.