One of two people charged with involvement in the abuse of a four-year-old female appeared in Baxter County Circuit Court Monday (February 10).
Twenty-five-year-old Ashlyn Rae Shelton, mother of the battered child and reported to be the girlfriend of the other person charged in the incident, 23-year-old Austin Helms, pled guilty to abuse of a minor child.
She was sentenced to six years-probation.
Helms pled guilty to first degree battery and was sentenced to 40 years in prison during a court session August 12 last year.
He was accused of hitting the little girl to the point that bruises were found in a number of places on her body.
When the investigation began in late July, Shelton is alleged to have told investigators the victim came into her bedroom crying, saying she had to go to the bathroom but couldn’t see.
The mother said she saw that her daughter’s eyes were swollen shut and her face and neck were red.
The victim was taken to Baxter Health and an examination showed she had bruising on her arms, back, hands, legs, bottom and feet. She was x-rayed and given a CT scan that proved negative for broken bones or internal injuries.
While at the hospital, the victim was asked what had happened and she is reported to have said that “Austin hit me” and she made a fist and motioned toward her face.
At one point, she was asked about the bruising on her hands and replied that she “had broken Austin’s phone and he had hit her hands.”
The little girl was released from Baxter Health and initially placed in the custody of the Arkansas Department of Human Services.
When DHS contacted a physician at Arkansas Children’s Hospital (ACH), the doctor said she wanted the child brought to ACH and kept overnight for observation.
There is no information in the probable cause affidavit to indicate what conclusions were reached at ACH.
Two items found in the victim’s bedroom were brought to police – a green shirt with blood on it and a wire fly swatter matching a mark on the child’s stomach. The items were found wedged between the mattress and the wall, according to the probable cause affidavit.
Shelton later claimed that marks on the child’s face resulted from a recent incident in which the little girl had torn down window blinds while climbing. Shelton said she had spanked her daughter.
When she was asked to recall when she had spanked the child prior to the “climbing incident,” Shelton said just a few days prior “but she could not remember” what had triggered the punishment.
Shelton was initially charged with permitting child abuse and 1st degree battery.
Helms is currently serving his time at the Randall L. Williams Correctional Facility at Pine Bluff.
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