Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Parents Broke 29 Bones in 6-Week-Old's Body: Police

Episode Date: January 29, 2025

Savannah Cox and Shane Moore have been charged with first-degree child cruelty and aggravated battery after police in Rome, Georgia said their six-week-old daughter suffered 29 fractures in different bones in her body. The injuries were discovered in February 2024 when Cox and her mother took the baby to the hospital. The parents were charged last week. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy looks at allegations in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime.Host:Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5Guest:Sam BassettCRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. A young mother and father charged nearly a year after doctors discovered their baby had nearly 30 broken bones. I have the disturbing allegations out of Georgia and the charges the little girl's parents face. Welcome to Crime Fix.

I'm Anjanette Levy. I want to warn you, this is a really disturbing case. It involves a little, little baby. And if you've ever had a baby or even babysat for one, you know how helpless and fragile they are, especially when they're just four to six weeks old. Their parents are supposed to protect them, but police in Rome, Georgia, northwest of Atlanta, say that didn't happen with a six-week-old baby girl, and now her parents are facing felony charges. Shane Moore and Savannah Cox are the parents to the little girl, who's now probably about 18 months old. In February of 2024, police say that Savannah Cox and her mother showed up at a hospital with Savannah's six-week-old daughter, and the baby had significant injuries. A police report states, upon arrival, I spoke with

a nurse at Floyd. She advised that the mother, Savannah Carol Louise Cox, and the great-grandmother had brought in the infant earlier. The staff observed that the right femur appeared broken and that there was bruising on the right side of the baby's face. The staff observed that the right femur appeared broken and that there was bruising on the right side of the baby's face. The nurse further advised that the grandmother and the grandfather had left before my arrival and had gone outside. Now the right femur, that's the bone in your thigh. So this is a six-week-old baby girl that had a broken thigh bone. Can you imagine? What on earth could a baby be doing to break a femur? And she also had bruising on her face. The police report continues. I then went into the private room and

spoke with Savannah and her mom. I was able to observe the baby resting on Savannah and could see clear bruising on the right side of the face and a leg appeared to be swollen. Now you saw there, the officer documented that he saw injuries, swelling to the baby's leg and bruising on the baby's face. The officer had to be thinking, this is not normal. The officer then wrote about a conversation he had with Savannah Cox. Savannah advised that the baby mostly slept for the rest of the day, and that at approximately 1800 to 1900 hours, that's between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m., she observed some swelling on the leg. She said that she consulted with other members of the family and it was decided to take the baby to the hospital.

Savannah and her mom both advised that they were unsure of how the baby sustained the damage to her leg and her face, advising that nothing had happened today. They did advise that the doctor at Floyd prior to my arrival told them that the fracture to the left femur occurred this morning. At one point, they offered that perhaps the damage was done during the pediatric visit. So the Rome police officer wrote that Savannah Cox suggested that her daughter's thigh was broken at the doctor's office, at the pediatrician's office. And that likely raised a huge red flag. Again, this is not the type of injury a six-week-old typically suffers. The police interviewed Savannah Cox and the baby's father, Shane Moore.

They lived with Shane's parents. The police report goes on to say that the nurse at the hospital called police and said a full body scan of the couple's baby revealed a number of injuries in different areas of the body and stages of healing. The police report lists the injuries as a displaced fracture on the right scapula. That's a bone in the upper back. A healed or healing fracture of distal right humerus. That's a bone in the upper arm, a fracture of the right femur. There were also injuries to the left femur and fractures that had healed in the tibula and fibula. Those are the bones in the lower leg.

The report goes on to say there was subtle nonspecific irregularity of head distal radius, which means an injury to the wrist, and a lesion over the fifth rib. As I mentioned, police said some of these injuries were healed or healing, while the injury to the right femur was brand new. Police were concerned and called the Department for Children and Family Services and removed the baby's older sister from the home and had her examined for possible injuries. Then just recently, nearly a year after Savannah Cox took her baby girl to the hospital, she and Shane Moore, they were taken into custody. They were both charged with first-degree cruelty to children and aggravated battery. The arrest warrant for Savannah Cox states, the accused did commit the offense of cruelty to children in the first degree

when she caused injuries to her infant child between the dates of January 15th, 2024 and February 7th, 2024. The accused was one of two primary caregivers to the six-week-old infant. The victim sustained 29 fractured bones during the above stated time frame. So the warrant claims the baby suffered those 29 bone fractures during a period of less than one month from January 15th to February 7th. The warrant for aggravated battery is similar, stating the accused did commit the offense of aggravated battery when she caused injuries to her infant child between the dates of January 15th, 2024 and February 7th, 2024. The accused was one of two primary caregivers to their six-week-old infant. The victim sustained 29

fractured bones during the above-stated timeframe. The infant child had to be placed into a harness to limit movement while her leg injuries healed. The arrest affidavit for Shane Moore essentially says the same thing. So I wanna bring in Sam Bassett. He's a criminal defense attorney in Austin, Texas. Sam, this case as a parent is just unbelievable to me. Obviously, these are allegations at this point. They have to be proven in a court of law.

But your first thoughts, I mean, we have a case where a child, a six-week-old baby girl, was brought into the hospital by her mother on February 7th of 2024. And yet it took almost a year for these charges to be filed. So why did it take so long? I have no idea. It's a little bit unusual that at the time the child was treated medically, that the authorities weren't her mother and her grandmother to the hospital. And they say that, you know, she had a broken femur. I mean, that's a thigh bone, Sam. This is a thigh bone on a baby. And, you know, that's a pretty significant injury. Plus, they said bruising on the side of the face. So this obviously raised some red flags. The nurses call the cops and they're like, what's going on here? And so they do a full body scan on this baby

and they see that there are 29 fractures in different areas of the body. I mean, upper arm, wrist, tibia, fibula, Those are the bones in the lower leg. I mean, that's a lot of injury there. So it sounds like they believe that this baby from January 15th to February 7th was enduring a lot of abuse. I mean, to have that many fractures in different states of healing. It definitely looks bad for the defense in many ways. This case is going to turn on medical experts who treat very young children and babies. The only defensive issue that comes to mind is if there was a particularly unusual or difficult childbirth

issue that could have caused some of the fracturing but but again experts that are far smarter than than i am on these issues will have to kind of analyze this and determine can it be conclusively proven that this was not any sort of a result of a childbirth process or a medical process that was particularly difficult when the child was born. Wouldn't they have looked at that, though? I mean, wouldn't that have been documented if this was a difficult childbirth, that mom had a really, really hard time and that this baby would have, you know, this infant, this newborn would have suffered possibly some horrific injuries during childbirth. I mean, if you're having a rough labor, I would think that they would have, first of all, done a C-section if it was that bad.

And second of all, you know, you take the, you get the baby out of, you know, the birth canal during delivery, and then they do a full rundown, a workup of the baby to make sure that the baby is healthy. Absolutely. I think that's correct. It'll be interesting to see how the scientific or medical evidence develops in the case, but it doesn't look good for the defendants. And also you have the situation where you have both parents. Will one turn on the other? Will they talk about who did this? Does the other parent know if one parent did this or did they both do this, assuming something bad happened in their household with this child? It's a very sad case. Yeah, it's a very, very sad case. I mean, this is a six week old baby. Mom, Savannah Cox and Shane Moore, the father of the baby, they are apparently living, I believe, with his parents. And so they're all living in this house together. And on Facebook, everybody looks happy, of course, because that's how Facebook is. That's how social media is.

Nobody really puts like pictures of themselves looking really unhappy on Facebook and other social media platforms. But they basically say Savannah, mom, newborn, mother to this newborn, this six week old, suggests that the baby, you know, according to her was asleep much of the day. And then six or 7pm, she sees swelling on the baby's leg. And then she suggests that they were at the doctor earlier in the day, and that the baby's femur, the thigh bone, the thigh bone was possibly broken at the doctor's office. I mean, how in the world? I mean, of course, they're going to go to the doctor's office. I mean, how in the world? I mean, of course, they're going to go to the doctor's office and be like, hey, you guys saw the little baby here earlier in the day. They're going to go to the pediatrician and say, what did the baby look like when the baby was here?

I mean, suggesting if that is indeed the case, that the baby was injured and suffered a broken thigh bone at the pediatrician's office. I mean, that's, wow, that's something I have not heard before. Right. That's a very novel explanation for something that looks very suspicious. And also the fact that there are four adults in the home, I hope that all of them are being questioned thoroughly about what they noticed, when did they notice it. You know, everybody in these situations that's in the household is a suspect until otherwise proven. And they're difficult cases because obviously a young baby can't say what happened. And it's a defenseless little baby. And you just have to look at the issues, the dynamics in the house, who had some sort of problem going on mentally, possibly.

What could be the explanation for an outrageous act such as this, assuming somebody in the household committed this crime? Yeah, I'm assuming, you know, this is what I'm taking away from this, looking at this. Since this investigation was underway for nearly a year, since the visit to the hospital was in February of 2024, this is what I'm gathering. I mean, I could be mistaken. You know, the cops aren't going to lay out their investigation for us, although I would love it if they did that. But I'm thinking they had to go through and interview everybody. Maybe they get search warrants for everybody's phones to see what's going on. We don't know if there were security cameras in the house. We just don't know whether or not that was the case. And they go through

everything. And that takes some time sometimes. But they were somehow able to determine that these injuries started on January 15th, which I find very interesting because if you have a newborn, you have to do what are called well-care visits and you have to take your baby in every week or so, week and a half, two weeks, something like that. You have to take the baby in. Now, you might not necessarily notice a broken or a fracture in a bone at that point if you're a pediatrician examining a baby. But this baby should have been going to the doctor pretty frequently in that first six weeks of life. So I'm assuming they had to piece together some things pretty meticulously in that time period between January 15th and February 7th.

Yes. And the question I have is, did this baby stay in the care of these people for all this time? It's pretty remarkable that there wasn't some sort of court intervention early on when the baby's injuries were first reported. Yeah, I mean, well, on February 7th, they did, child services did come in and take custody of the baby and her sister. She has an older sister and they examined the baby as well. So Sam, this case lands on your desk, okay? From the defense attorney perspective, you've gotta get the discovery.

What do you do with this case? Where do you start? Well, depending on who my client is, I talk to my client about what happened, if they know. Are they covering for somebody? Are they covering for somebody else? I also want to hire the best pediatric expert that I can find to look at the medical findings and look at the medical records

to determine if there's an explanation for these injuries other than abuse. And, you know, obviously there's been a lot of developments in pediatric expert testimony over the last decade or so regarding issues like shaken baby syndrome and things such as that. So I'm going to try to find the best expert I can find to look at these issues to determine if there is a defense, if there's a medical or physiological defense to explain these injuries other than physical brutality. And then finally, I'm going to want to talk to all the people in the household if they'll talk to me about what they know, what they saw. Does anybody have a reason to be acting in such a manner that's in the household?

The parents, is one parent protecting the other? Are they both protecting each other? Those are all issues you have to explore as a defense attorney when you get one of these very difficult cases. Both the mom and dad, Savannah Cox and Shane Moore, are facing charges. So maybe the police know that both of them allegedly inflicted these injuries upon the baby, or could they be trying to get one to turn on the other? Well, it's always a dynamic in these cases that the police may suspect one parent is guilty and the other is not. But sometimes that bond between the couple is hard to break through. And in some circumstances, they each should have a separate lawyer, frankly,

advising them, particularly the non-offending parent needs to be told, look, this is your baby, this is your life. Why are you protecting the other person if they did something? Is there a postpartum depression issue? You have to look into that. Is there a substance abuse issue? Obviously, you mentioned earlier the technological discovery that you have to explore in the devices. Are there any admissions on social media, on the phones, on text messages, emails, any statements that are consistent with having done something bad to this child?

All those things have to be explored as you're trying to sort through a defense in this case. Yeah, most certainly. Well, we will see where the case goes. I'm just glad that the baby is alive and that things didn't end in a more tragic manner. And we will follow the case to see where it goes. Sam Bassett, thank you so much. Thank you. If Savannah Cox and Shane Moore are convicted of that first degree cruelty to children charge alone, they face anywhere between five years and 20 years in prison. And we'll keep an eye on this case and see where it goes. That's it for this episode of Crime Fix.

I'm Anjanette Levy. Thanks so much for being here. I'll see you back here next time.