A father was arrested after allegedly throwing his infant, later telling investigators the baby “bounced” and rolled under a chair.
Christopher Leon Jenkins was charged with capital murder and booked into Texas’ Harris County Jail on a $2 million bond, according to jail records reviewed by Oxygen.com.
Jenkins has not yer entered a plea, attorney Kathryn Kahle told Oxygen.com, adding, “We look forward to vigorously defending Mr. Jenkins in court.”
In July, authorities responded to a medical call reporting that a newborn was not breathing, according to a probable cause document obtained by Oxygen.com. Inside Jenkins’ Baytown home, officers found a 7-week-old boy lying naked on a mattress. He had no pulse and pink fluid was coming from his mouth.
Jenkins told paramedics he was caring for his son while the boy’s mother was visiting a relative. He said he put the baby to bed at around 8 p.m. and later found him unresponsive, per the affidavit.
The baby was transported to the hospital where he was diagnosed with a brain bleed and cardiac arrest. He died seven days later.
Jenkins initially said he stepped outside to smoke a cigarette and when he returned, his son wasn’t breathing. Later, he said he accidentally dropped the boy while feeding him. Then, he reported dropping him on his head while removing him from the bath.
On August 5, police returned to Jenkins’ home and brought a SUIDI doll (Sudden Unexpected Infant Death Investigation) and asked him to demonstrate how he handled his son.
“I end up taking it and just,” he said, according to the affidavit, “Can I throw this?”
Police wrote that Jenkins then threw the doll onto a couch, saying, “That’s how it bounced, just like that. Rolled here, under here,” while pointing with his foot toward a chair next to the couch.
Later, in another demonstration described in the affidavit, Jenkins threw the doll onto a bed, noting it bounced off and “flipped away over there” while pointing to the floor on the opposite side of the bed.
“I guess he bounced so high,” Jenkins said in the affidavit, “he bounced all the way to the other side.”
According to investigators, Jenkins also said the baby had been crying a lot.
“I guess my mind…guess there was too much crying in my mind, just clicked,” Jenkins said, according to police in the affidavit. Jenkins added that he didn’t understand what had happened until he “came back to his senses.”
“I guess he got to trippin,’” Jenkins said, according to the affidavit, “I guess my mind just lost…I lost my freaking head and took him, picked him up, see if he wanted the rest of the bottle but he did not want the rest of the bottle.”
Jenkins said he believed that his son was unconscious when he picked him up and shook him slightly to see whether he was alive, per the affidavit.
Jenkins’ next court date is scheduled for May 11.
