A Logan, West Virginia, woman was arrested on a felony child abuse charge after, police said, she was seen on video committing abuse against her four-year-old child.
According to an arrest citation written by Pikeville Police Officer Austin Kranzman, on March 31, he was dispatched to Pikeville Medical Center, where the child had been receiving treatment since March 28 for several different illnesses, including five different viruses.
Kranzman wrote that they heard the child screaming and crying hysterically and reviewed security footage of the room.
The citation said Kranzman reviewed the footage, which showed the child gagging intensely as if they had to vomit. While the child was gagging, Kranzman wrote, the mother Diana Caitlyn Willis, 26, of Vaughan Street, Logan, struck the child numerous times over a short period of time.
Kranzman wrote that he observed Willis placing the child in a situation that may have caused serious physical injury and that her conduct constituted cruel punishment given the child’s health and the situation, in which it appeared the child was being punished for crying while sick.
Willis, the citation said, admitted the abuse did happen, but said she “popped (the child) in the mouth” two or three times and that it didn’t hurt the child. Willis, the citation said, told the officers this happened because the child wanted to play with markers and was not allowed.
The child was released into the custody of another adult present, Kranzman wrote, and he notified child protective services in both Kentucky and West Virginia.
Willis was lodged in the Pike County Detention Center on a charge of first-degree criminal abuse (child 12 or under).
Court documents show she was ordered held on a $5,000 cash bond set by Pike District Judge Robert F. Wright. She was released on April 2, after the bond was posted, court documents show.