By Jeff Lehr
jlehr@joplinglobe.com
A man accused of causing severe brain damage to his girlfriend’s 15-month-old daughter by slamming her head on a tile floor and pushing her down two flights of stairs was ordered Thursday to stand trial on a felony assault charge.
Associate Circuit Judge Richard Copeland found probable cause to order Esvin R. Mendez, 25, bound over for trial at a preliminary hearing in Jasper County Circuit Court in Joplin. Mendez is charged with first-degree assault on his girlfriend’s daughter. The judge set Oct. 26 for his first appearance in a trial division of the court.
The girl, identified only as “Jennifer” in testimony and court records, had to be flown to a Kansas City hospital and placed on life support after being brought to McCune-Brooks Regional Hospital in Carthage five months ago in an unresponsive state.
Detective Steve Waldo of the Carthage Police Department testified that the girl was on a ventilator in the emergency room of the Carthage hospital when he was called there May 12 regarding a possible case of child abuse. The detective said he spoke to the girl’s mother at the hospital.
“She said that the child fell off a bed a couple days before,” Waldo said. “But I talked to a doctor and he said the injuries were not consistent with that.”
The detective testified that he subsequently learned that the abuse may have taken place outside of the city at a home on County Road 118, and the investigation was turned over to the Jasper County Sheriff’s Department.
On cross-examination by defense attorney Steve Hays, Waldo said that in the course of determining where the girl suffered her injuries, he went to the rural address and was shown the bed from which she purportedly fell. He said the bed had a metal frame that extended out a couple of inches from the mattress, but he did not recall seeing any signs of blood either on the bed or the floor of the room.
Carthage police Detective Bill Hawkins testified as the investigator who first spoke to Mendez about the girl’s injuries. He said he contacted the defendant at his place of employment, Butterball Turkey Co. in Carthage, and had him come down to the police station for questioning with the assistance of another police officer acting as an interpreter. Mendez does not speak English.
Hawkins said Mendez initially denied any knowledge of injuries to the girl other than a fall from a bed a couple of days before. Eventually, he admitted grabbing the girl by her face when she would not stop crying and shoving her down so that her head struck a ceramic tile floor, Hawkins said. The detective testified that later in the interview, the defendant told him that the girl had fallen down some stairs after he pushed her to the floor.
Assistant Prosecutor Theresa Kenney chose not to present any additional testimony following Hawkins’ turn on the witness stand, although Jasper County sheriff’s investigator Tim Williams was available in the courtroom.
A probable-cause affidavit in the case filed by Williams states that Mendez allegedly confessed to having picked the girl up by her face and shoving her down two flights of stairs in the home.
The Sheriff’s Department said early in the investigation that Mendez lived with the girl’s mother, the girl and a 2-month-old boy who is the child of both the mother and the defendant. The boy was removed from the home and placed in temporary custody of the state early in the investigation.
There was no testimony Thursday as to the girl’s current medical condition or who is currently caring for either of the children. The mother also has not been identified by name as yet by investigators.
Illegal alien
Esvin Mendez was in violation of U.S. immigration laws living in this country at the time of his alleged crime, according to court records. Court records do not state what his native country is. As an illegal alien, he has been denied bond in the case and remains in custody at the Jasper County Jail.
