Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Parents ignore crying infant chewed by rats

Episode Date: May 18, 2017

A teenaged couple faces felony charges for failing to protect their two-week-old daughter from rats in their Arkansas home. The infant suffered up to 100 rodent bites on her face, body and arms while the young parents slept near the crib, according to police. The baby survived, but the wounds required reconstructive surgery. Nancy Grace and Alan Duke discuss this disturbing case in this episode. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. severely bitten by rats in their home. Her parents are in jail after the child was severely bitten up to 100 times by rats. An emergency room nurse told investigators that the 15-day-old baby had suffered bite wounds on her arms, face, fingers and hands. This is Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. 19-year-old Erica Shryrock and 18-year-old Charles Elliott of Magnolia facing charges of permitting abuse and endangering the welfare of a child. Investigators say both parents admitted they knew Rads were in the house and did nothing to get rid of them.

The injury is so bad she needs reconstructive surgery on her face. What this case is about is some people in this world don't need to be parents. Parents arrested after their 15-day-old baby is found covered in 100 rat bites. Repeat. Parents arrested after their 15-day-old baby girl is found covered in 100, one zero zero rat bites. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us.

This is so painful to even discuss, but that's the thing about justice. You can't turn away from it. You have to face it head on and try to do something about it. This little baby girl, 15 days old, was found in a blood-soaked crib, weighing just 5 pounds. The parents, Erica Shyrock and Charles Elliott, now charged with child endangerment. I think the charges should be much more severe than child endangerment. There was also an inch-wide gash on the baby's forehead. It was so deep you could see a portion of her skull. Okay the police searched the couple's

Arkansas home. They found her crib. It was bloody and there were rat paw prints, a baby's blood-soaked hat, a blanket with blood on it, and rat feces. That's where the little girl was living, the 15-day-old baby. Rat prints. Doctors conclude the baby suffered severe skin destruction from rat feeding that would have taken hours and hours to occur. It's not like a rat got in, unbeknownst to the parents, chewed on the baby's skin. No, this went on for hours. Their newborn baby girl covered in blood, suffering from up to 100 rat bites all over her body. Now what's going to happen?

This endangerment to the welfare of a minor, that's a slap on the wrist. This needs to be much, much more severe. Now, according to the arrest affidavit with me, the Duke, Alan Duke, joining me out of L.A., we've gotten a hold of the arrest affidavit and the whole thing began to unfold around 11 30 in the morning on a Sunday. Police were called to Magnolia Regional Medical Center about a little baby that had a rat bite. The ER nurse says that the girl was just 15 days old and she only weighed five pounds. Now, see, that doesn't strike me as odd, Alan, because when Lucy was born, she was just 2 pounds. But 75 to 100 rat bites all over her body, arms, fingers, hands, face, and that gash on her forehead so deep it exposed a part of her skull according to

arkansamatters.com they got a hold of shyrock who had been dating elliot for a couple of years and she told police she put her daughter to sleep 5 30 a.m in the bassinet next to the parents bed and woke up to screams just two hours later. She says when she looked in the crib, she found her girl was covered in blood. The boyfriend, interviewed separately, said he saw bloody rat footprints in the cribs. Both parents say they knew their home was infested by rats, but never did anything about it. Okay, Alan Duke, weigh in. This is stunning. 18-year-old woman, 19-year-old young man. And you've just got to wonder, how did they prepare to be a parent? Obviously, they had absolutely no preparation. I mean,

how does this happen? This is in southwestern Arkansas, and I know people in Arkansas love their children. They love their children. What do you mean? How did it happen? Through neglect, hours and hours of neglect. You know, that baby was screaming her head off. That baby would be dead, I believe, if not for Elliot's mother. The couple apparently, according to what I understand, didn't want to take the child to the hospital because they said, oh, it'll be taken away from us, this child would. But the mother saw this horrible situation and persuaded them to take the child to the hospital. So they weren't even going to take the baby to the hospital?

No, no, they were afraid to. Catch this. Elliot says they cleaned up some of the blood. That's the man. And they waited an additional hour and a half for Barton to arrive at their home before seeking medical help. What? They waited almost two hours before getting medical help with 100 rat bites. I mean, 100 rat bites on you, Alan, would be life-threatening, much less on a little baby. Oh, my God. Yes.

I literally weigh 40 times what this baby did. This was a tiny little child. The little thing had to undergo reconstructive surgery to close the wound on her forehead. I don't know if you can get a gaping wound like that from rats. That sounds like something else, like a blow to the head. Yeah, it may be. Of course, these rats might have been about the size or close to the size of the baby. We don't know. I mean, the physician determined the damage took hours and hours to occur and the baby would have been in distress, in translation, screaming her head off during this time. The parents, he says, the doctor says, he or she, were either, quote, incapacitated or absent,

not to have responded to the baby's distress, translation, screaming. They let the baby lie there screaming while it was being chewed up by rats alan this baby was sleeping right by their bed now my grandkids two and four when the four-year-old was just an infant like this she would come over and she would stay in a little bassinet next to me i would know if she was awake i would know if she was trying to crawl out. I was very aware. How could they not be aware that this was going on? I have not read anywhere that there were drugs involved. Have you seen any indication of that? No, but I do know that this mom who is now 19 has another baby, had another baby in 2015. So she had experience. Yes, she's had children. She's had a

baby before. She knew darn well that she was ignoring the child, and that equals child abuse. They're being held without bond, but these charges must be upgraded because on these charges, they're facing very little jail time, and they've got to get the baby away from them. No contact with the baby. I'm wondering how that's going to work because, of course, you want the kid to be with the parents. No, I don't. But there's a grandmom, Grandmom Elliot.

No. Not even with the grandmother? She'll let the mother back. No. No. Mm-mm the grandmother? She'll let the mother back. No. No. Mm-mm. Mm-mm. Now, Grandma Elliot is the dad's mom.

I'm just wondering if that's not the best place. Is that the best place? You don't think so? No, it's not the best place. Not that there's anything wrong with the grandmother. She's the one that saved the baby's life. But here's the problem with giving the... I would argue for the grandmom, just from what I

know. As I was trying to say, the problem with the grandmother is this. She will have pity on her child and allow the baby to be with the parents. And that's a big N-O. The baby cannot go to

the parents. We don't even know where the first baby is, the two-year-old. God only knows what happened to that baby. And now there's this one. There are many, many cases where these teenagers have babies, and they end up with the grandparents, and the grandparents are wonderful. That may be, Alan. That may very well be. But the baby's been through enough.

I would not leave it up to chance. And quit calling them teens. Okay? Yes, they're 18 and 19. But one has already had children. And that is an adult under the law. I don't want to hear about that when you are comparing an 18-year-old who, under other circumstances, I may feel compassion for. But compared to a 15-day-old baby, you know, they got a front-row seat in first class, straight to hell, okay, for what they did to this baby.

God only knows what may have happened to the other baby. So I'm just wondering when this case is going to go forward, do we know anything about that yet? They were in court this week for an initial arraignment, but nothing happens there. I mean, they are in jail right now and they are facing these charges. And of course, it's just the phase to where it's being investigated. So it could very well, the district attorney, the prosecutor could very well decide that it's more serious and upgraded. Actually, the charges have already been upgraded a little bit from what they were originally filed as. What do you mean?

They're in the Columbia County Justice and Detention Facility on charges of endangering the welfare of a minor first degree. They've been upgraded to a Class B felony. Not being the prosecutor or the lawyer in Arkansas, I can't tell you how significant that upgrade was, but maybe they'll upgrade it again. I really think it needs to be aggravated child abuse. I really do. But you know you've got rats, right? What do you do to protect your child from rats other than moving? What can

you do? Call an exterminator. Okay, but what else? Well, one thing you can do if you can't keep the baby away from the rats is let the baby go to the grandmothers or when the baby screams you check on it hello well that's true the baby was screaming her head off for hours i'm not saying the fact that they could not afford and i don't know that that's true, for an exterminator to come. Okay? I'm not holding that against them. What I am holding against them is this baby screamed her head off for hours and hours. Even the ER doctor knew that.

That's not a JD. He's an MD. He's not a cop. The baby was screaming her head off, and nobody came. Nobody saved her. Why? That's what I want to know. And they can give me those answers from their hot seat by Satan. As far as I'm concerned, I don't care what the

answer is. Okay. Cause this baby has suffered so much. You've got a two week old infant. And let's say up until those last hours, they do it. we're doing a wonderful job with this child. Let's just assume that for this moment. The last couple of hours, the baby was crying. Have you not ever let your child just continue to cry? You had two of them continue to cry in the crib because they say, oh, don't pick them up every time they start crying because they'll get spoiled. Have you ever followed that philosophy? You know what? Or every time John David started crying because they'll get spoiled. Have you ever followed that philosophy? You know what?

Or every time John David started crying, you picked him up. If you were here in this room, I would snatch you up by your lips, and you would be begging through your ears to be let go. I'm asking a question. I'm not making an accusation. I did not ever let them lay there and cry. Absolutely not. Never. No, not once. Haven't you ever heard that advice? Yes, I have heard it. And I think it's cruel and mean

because in my mind, when a baby cries, it's for one of a couple of reasons. It's hungry, it's wet, or it's hurting, or it's sleepy. Those are the four reasons I think a baby, or it's scared. I think those are the only reasons a baby cries. And if I was there and the baby cried, it was picked up, one or both. You're darn right. Yeah. You obviously remember your first two weeks with twins. It was the toughest two weeks of your life, I bet.

I would say it was physically demanding because I also nearly died during childbirth and had multiple blood clots to my lungs and congestive heart failure. So yeah, I had a hard time. You had your mom there though, right? I had my mom. I had my dad, had my husband. We had a lady that helped me during the first three or four months. I could hardly even walk at that time, but I did. And when she would be tired, she would call her sister. She and her sister. And we all got through it. And remember, John David came home several weeks before Lucy. So I was back and forth taking care of John David and back to the hospital to be with Lucy. And that lasted, they were both in NICU a long time. But yes, when they cried, I picked them up. And when they cry now, I still go to them immediately.

You know, in a couple of years, they won't need mommy anymore. But right now they do. But you're getting me off the subject. I want to get back on these rat bites. Yeah, I think it's right on the subject, actually. I think it's right on the subject because my point is that Erica, 18. Yes, an adult. She's 19.

She's 19. Charles is 18. She's a couple of months from 20. Probably didn't have a lot of financial resources like you want to call an exterminator and do. But you would think, what do you do to get rid of the rats? Have you ever had rats in your house? I mean, you're from Macon, Georgia. There are rats down there. I know. It's really weird. It's a weird thing about you. You always suggest that some region is somehow what more rat infested than another. No, I have not had rats yet. But I have had a gopher in the house this past two weeks, this past week, two of them, I think.

I haven't gotten a good identification. It could be the same one. I thought I got him out. Well, he's back. But a rat, no. I don't think gophers are going to mess with the twins. Yeah, you know what? He's kind of cute. I'm more concerned about the cat eating him. But can we get back on these two and why it shouldn't be aggravated child abuse? They knew they had rats. In their imagination, I guess they just didn't think that the rats could crawl into the crib. You know what? I'd like to believe that, but the man, the father, said to police he had seen the rat on top of a dresser. I believe it was a dresser or a countertop. So who has never logged on and seen pictures of rats somewhere or the

other on the table? I remember it was so shocking. Remember the, was it a Del Taco or a KFC? I don't know what restaurant it was in New York. Somebody walked through beside it at night and there were several rats like having a party up on the table and then it got posted online. That just happened. So yeah, everybody knows a rat. I don't know how they get up there, but they can get up on top of a table. And of course that means they can get in a baby's crib. I guess this should be a warning to all parents out there. Protect your little babies from rats. Alan, that goes without saying what I'm talking about now is justice. And for me, that only answer is aggravated child abuse.

That's where I'm coming from. And we're on the story. Right now, these two are being held without bond. I want to find out where the baby's going and how her skin reconstructive surgery has turned out. And when I know those answers, I will round up the Duke and we'll be back. This is Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.