12 Year Old Boy Allegedly Killed His Infant Cousin, “Her Head Was Bashed In”

A 12-year-old boy is on trial in Atlanta for allegedly bashing in the head of his 5-week-old cousin.

Brittiany Young, the mother of the infant, said in court Wednesday that she noticed when she looked in the car seat that the baby’s mouth looked swollen, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.

The boy, a sixth-grader whose name is being withheld because he is a minor, told her that he had dropped his cousin and then picked her up with one hand.

But police say that the severity of the baby’s injuries – multiple fractures of the skull – are consistent with a much more sinister story.

“That child’s head was bashed in,” Prosecutor Eleanor Odom told the judge. “She suffered blunt force head trauma at the hands of [the boy].”

Young, of Kennesaw, Ga., told the judge that she had left her infant daughter in the car alone with the boy for 18 minutes, according to the Journal-Constitution. When she got back she noticed that her daughter not breathing and that the baby’s lips were blue, her eyes were swollen and blood in her mouth, she testified.

“I put the car in park and asked [the boy],‘What did you do? What did you do to her?’” she recalled.

After she dialed 911, paramedics rushed the baby to the hospital, where she was later declared brain dead.

“After they explained that they thought her brain had collapsed and she was considered brain dead, I didn’t want to continue,” the mother testified.

The baby was removed from life support.