John Jefferson
Inset: Angel Schonabaum (Vanderburgh County Jail). Background: The Evansville, Indiana, home where an infant suffered 50 rat bites (WEHT).
An Indiana mother of a 6-month-old boy who was found covered in more than 50 rat bites in their vermin-infested home has been sentenced.
Angel Schonabaum, 29, learned her fate on Thursday after pleading guilty to one count of neglect of a dependent. She received a four-year sentence and was given credit for time served of one year. The balance of her sentence was suspended to probation, online court records show. She will be required to take a mental health evaluation and follow any recommended treatment.
The baby’s father, David Schonabaum, 32, was convicted in September of child neglect of the baby and two other children in the home. He was sentenced to 16 years behind bars.
The case came to light on Sept. 3, 2023, when officers with the Evansville Police Department responded to a call about a baby requiring emergency medical attention at a residence in the 1600 block of South Linwood Avenue. The caller — later identified as David Schonabaum — told the dispatcher that he awoke to find his infant son “covered in blood” and said the boy’s fingers appeared to have been “chewed off.”
At the scene, first responders provided emergency medical treatment, stabilized the baby, and took him to a hospital. The boy was then transported via helicopter to another hospital in Indianapolis for more specialized treatment.
In hospital records provided to police, doctors described the baby as having suffered a “near fatal event” and he required a blood transfusion after almost going into shock.
Doctors said the baby suffered more than 50 bites to his forehead, cheek, and nose alone. The boy was missing flesh from all four fingers and thumb on his right hand, exposing bone on all five fingertips.
The child also suffered additional bites to his arms, legs, feet, and toes.
“From what the doctors and nurses told the detectives, very near to death,” Evansville police Sgt. Anna Gray told local ABC affiliate WEHT when asked how serious the boy’s condition was. “The child had lost so much blood that the child actually had to have blood transfusions as well. Several fingers had to be amputated.”
She added, “The only reason that we even knew about it was because the dad woke up and the baby was covered in blood.”
At the home, police said the baby’s bassinet was about three feet away from the bed where his parents slept in a room that was covered with clutter, half-eaten food, and rat feces. The detective said he observed “a large amount of blood” inside the bassinet, along with a “boppy pillow” and blanket that were both “covered in blood.”
The diaper disposal container also had “blood smeared all over it and what appeared to be rodent footprints left in the blood,” the affidavit states.
When asked how they could allow such horrors to be inflicted on a baby, the adults said, “they did not hear the child cry,” according to Gray.
“This was a case where rats had been living in the home,” Gray told WEHT. “The home was overwhelmed with rodents.”
After David Schonabaum was convicted, Vanderburgh County Prosecutor Diana Moers said in a statement to the Evansville Courier & Press the case was so horrific that it would have a lasting impact on cops and prosecutors.
“The victim in this case was a 6-month-old baby who suffered horrific rat bites to his entire body while laying in a bassinet in his home,” Moers said. “When paramedics and police arrived the infant was laying in his crib in a pool of blood and the bites were so bad on his body — including his face, mouth, and extremities — that they left bone showing on one hand and he is now permanently disfigured.”
The boy’s aunt, Delaina Thurman, also pleaded in the case and received a two-year suspended prison sentence, records show.
Law&Crime’s David Harris and Jerry Lambe contributed to this report.
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