John Jefferson
Background: News footage of the apartment in California, Pa. where Lyndon Henderson allegedly beat his girlfriend’s baby (WPXI). Inset: Lyndon Henderson (Washington County Correctional Facility).
A Pennsylvania man was charged with attempted homicide weeks after he was arrested for allegedly beating his girlfriend’s 1-year-old son.
The original incident happened on Nov. 23 when Lyndon Henderson, 24, was watching his unnamed girlfriend’s son while she was at work. When she returned home, her son was unresponsive on the couch. The baby was taken to the hospital, where he was diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury and placed on a ventilator. State police also reported that the little boy had a broken vertebrae and had suffered a stroke.
Henderson was arrested on felony charges of aggravated assault, but those charges were upgraded on Dec. 31 to attempted homicide.
According to the criminal complaint obtained by WPXI, a local NBC affiliate, Henderson told police during an interview that the little boy fell off the couch after he playfully spun him around in circles. He also said the boy was smiling after the fall.
The criminal complaint cited a doctor, however, who treated the boy at the hospital and said “[t]he brain injury sustained by the victim is 100%, unequivocally the result of child abuse.”
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WPXI spoke to Carla Darrell, the paternal grandmother of the boy, who said, “He was on all kinds of machines. He was beat like a man. A man beat my grandson.”
The toddler remains in a medically induced coma at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, weeks after being admitted.
Henderson was arrested and booked into the Washington County Correctional Facility where he is being held without bail. His next court appearance is a preliminary hearing on Jan. 22.
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