A man has been arrested in a Temple child abuse case after investigators dispute the claim that the child hit a tile floor, causing life-threatening injuries.
TEMPLE, Texas — A Taylor man was arrested after a boy was hospitalized with serious head injuries that investigators say were inconsistent with an accidental fall, according to court documents filed in Bell County.
Court records show Thomas Anthony Jonse was arrested on felony charges of injury to a child and aggravated assault causing serious bodily injury on Dec. 16 following an investigation by the Bell County Sheriff’s Office and Temple police.
Police were called to McLane Children’s Hospital on Dec. 14 for a reported injury to a child. Hospital staff told officers the boy had been brought in after suffering head trauma while in the care of Jonse, identified in court documents as the mother’s boyfriend.
According to the documents, the boy’s mother told police she left him with Jonse at her home in Temple. She said Jonse later called her to say he had fallen off the bed and hit his head, but that he was OK.
When she returned home, she said the boy was unresponsive and when she picked him up, he vomited on her. She then took him to the hospital.
The documents state that Jonse initially told a social worker at the hospital he was “play fighting on the bed when the boy fell backwards and hit his head.”
According to the social worker, Jonse later changed his story to say the boy was running on the bed when he fell off and hit his head on the tile floor. Investigators later discovered the floor was carpet, not tile.
Medical records reviewed by investigators indicated the child suffered head injuries that doctors said were not consistent with a fall from a bed.
The documents state that a physician at McLane Children’s Hospital reported the injury pattern was concerning for non-accidental trauma and abusive head trauma. Doctors also warned that the child had a high probability of imminent or life-threatening deterioration due to the injuries.
Injuries listed in the documents include an extensive fracture extending from the right occipital bone through the squamous temporal, parietal and partially in the lateral right frontal bone. According to the National Library of Medicine, this means a large, serious skull fracture that starts at the back right side of the head and spreads across multiple bones, extending up and around the side of the head toward the front.
Jonse was arrested and taken to the Bell County Jail. His bond was set at $500,000.
