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Zachary Beausoleil, of Pomfret in Windham County, is charged with risk of injury to a minor, Connecticut State Police said.
Police began investigating after Beausoleil and a woman brought a month-old baby to the Day Kimball Hospital in Putnam in August 2023. The infant was lethargic and was not eating, they told emergency room doctors.
Doctors diagnosed the baby with severe broken ribs in "various states of healing," a lacerated liver, and "multiple active brain bleeds," and they had her airlifted to the University of Massachusetts Children's Hospital in Worcester, Massachusetts, police said.
Social workers spoke with Beausoleil and the woman who lives with the infant. Their relationship was not explained.
During that two-hour talk, the social worker told them the infant showed signs of shaken baby syndrome, but they said the child's eyes had always rolled around and its ribs always popped when it moved, according to a police report.
Doctors told police that the injuries were consistent with child abuse, and the different stages of healing showed that it could have happened multiple times, authorities said.
In a report to the police, a doctor wrote that the child suffered a traumatic brain injury that would likely cause life-long neurological defects, including visual impairment, spasticity, and a higher risk of cerebral palsy.
Beausoleil told police the baby's birth was a difficult one. The umbilical cord was wrapped around the infant's neck during delivery and nurses had to do chest compressions for a minute to get her breathing.
He also explained that he once fell with the baby in his arms.
Beausoleil explained the baby woke him crying on the morning of Aug. 1, 2023. He picked her up from her crib and sat in a gliding chair to soothe her, the police report said.
At some point, he said he knocked over a glass that shattered on the floor.
When Beausoleil stood up from the chair, he stepped on a piece of glass, per the report. He jumped back from the pain, clipped the edge of the chair with his foot, and fell forward on the ground with the baby still in his arms. He said he thought he braced the baby in a way that protected it from the full weight of his body.
He said the child grunted but did not cry, so Beausoleil believed he had just knocked the wind out of her, police said. The baby then slept 12 to 14 hours and didn't show signs of distress.
Police later searched the home and found glass on the floor like Beausoleil told investigators.
Beausoleil and the woman did not take the child to the hospital until three days later when she called Beausoleil at work because the infant wouldn't eat and "was not acting right," the report continued.
Police searched Beausoleil's phone and found online searches for cracking ribs in infants and broken ribs two weeks before the alleged fall. He also searched for "throwing up green bile" the same day of the fall, the report said.
Two days later, he searched "fluid filled bump on baby’s head," the report said.
When investigators wanted to speak with Beausoleil in December, he said he would only do so with his lawyer present.
Days later, his attorney provided police with a four-page letter that explained that the unnamed woman who lives with Beausoleil and the baby had mental health issues and a history of self-abuse and harm. The letter also said the woman had been exhausted and frustrated since the child was born, per the police report.
The letter said Beausoleil never saw her abuse the child, but he had begun to suspect she could have caused the baby's mysterious injuries.
The letter added that Beausoleil had fallen "heavily" on the child that day, which is different than how he had first explained it to police in that he did what he could to cushion the fall and that he didn't think his full weight landed on the infant, the report said.
Police later arrested Beausoleil. He is out on $100,000 bail, authorities said.
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