MIAMI BEACH, Fla. – Authorities arrested a Miami Beach couple on felony charges Thursday after they said the couple’s 2-month-old son was found unresponsive with signs of “severe physical abuse,” including more than a dozen rib fractures.
Stephen Michael Palmer, 42, and his wife, Tina Joy Palmer, 37, both appeared in court Friday.
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According to arrest warrants, on the morning of Jan. 3, medics responded to the couple’s unit at the Edwards Apartments, located at 953 Collins Ave. on South Beach, after Stephen Palmer discovered his son unresponsive while his wife was at work.
After medics performed chest compressions, they took the boy to Mount Sinai Medical Center, where he was resuscitated and intubated before being airlifted to Nicklaus Children’s Hospital for further treatment in the pediatric intensive care unit.
Miami Beach police said Stephen Palmer, who described himself as his son’s primary caregiver, because his wife works two jobs, claimed that the baby had recently had a fever, was throwing up and was crying more than usual, which he believed was due to colic.
But police said the baby had 18 rib fractures, all in the healing stages, and a brain bleed that will likely lead to permanent scarring, the warrants state. The boy also has neurological damage.
He also had multiple scabs and a “visibly bruised and swollen left testicle that was hemorrhaged,” according to the warrants.
The injuries were indicative of abuse, the warrants state.
Both parents claimed they had no idea how the baby sustained the severe injuries, police said, and in an interview with a child protection worker, Stephen Palmer “was unable to explain the events that occurred prior to finding (his son) unresponsive. He did not mention that (his son) was previously ill.”
Tina Palmer told the worker her son “had been fussier than normal and crying more,” but she thought it was because of a stuffy nose due to drinking less milk that day, the warrants state.
Police said she, along with her husband, denied that any falls or accidents occurred.
Authorities said officers later had to obtain a warrant, because the couple wouldn’t answer their door when investigators came to talk to them.
A judge ordered that Stephen Palmer be held without bond on charges of aggravated child abuse/torture causing great bodily harm and child neglect causing great bodily harm, jail records show.
According to jail records, Tina Palmer remained held on a $100,000 bond on a charge of child neglect causing great bodily harm.
Both parents were ordered to stay away from the child if released from jail and were being held in Miami-Dade’s Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center.