Shannon Hills Father, 20, Charged As Accomplice After Infant Found With Broken Ribs, Limbs And Spine

BENTON, Ark. — The 20-year-old father of a Shannon Hills infant found in June with broken ribs on both sides, fractures in all four limbs and a compression fracture of the spine was charged Thursday in Saline County Circuit Court, two days after prosecutors filed the same charges against the baby’s mother.

Jordan Knight is charged as an accomplice to domestic battery in the first degree of a victim 4 or younger, a Class Y felony carrying 10 to 40 years or life in prison; permitting abuse of a child, a Class B felony; and introducing a controlled substance into the body of another person, a Class C felony. The information, filed at 8:50 a.m. by Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Taylor Smith for Prosecuting Attorney Chris Walton, also asks that any sentence be enhanced because the battery was committed in the presence of a child.

The case is 63CR-26-749. Brooklin Meredith, 19, the baby’s mother, was charged Tuesday with the same three counts in case 63CR-26-747. Her information named Knight as the person she acted “in concert with.”

The first count alleges that between April 7 and June 30, Knight knowingly caused serious physical injury to the baby, who was less than 3 months old, “under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life.” The second alleges he recklessly failed to prevent the abuse. The third alleges that on June 30 he caused a second child to ingest or inhale marijuana, resulting in a positive drug test.

Knight was booked into the Saline County jail by Shannon Hills police at 7:41 p.m. Sept. 30 on a single felony count of first-degree endangering the welfare of a minor, the charge named in the arrest warrant a magistrate signed Sept. 23, and was released Oct. 12 on a $15,000 bond, according to the jail’s booking record. The circuit information adds the battery, permitting-abuse and drug counts. No arraignment date was on the docket Thursday, and no attorney had entered an appearance for him.

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The affidavit attached to Knight’s information is the same one filed in Meredith’s case, written by Lt. Ray Keech of the Shannon Hills Police Department. Keech wrote that he was assigned the case July 1, the day after the baby was taken to an emergency room, and interviewed both parents with an investigator from the Arkansas State Police Crimes Against Children Division.

Knight “denied doing or having knowledge of someone harming” the baby, Keech wrote. He described her as “a quiet happy baby” who cried only when hungry or in need of a diaper change, said the home was “clean and peaceful” and that he and Meredith rarely disagreed, and said he had no explanation for how she could have been injured. He told Keech the two of them never left the home together without the baby. Both parents tested positive for THC.

A preliminary doctor’s report on July 2 found fractures of the fifth and sixth ribs on the right side and the second through sixth ribs on the left, “bucket handle” fractures of the long bones in both upper legs and both lower legs, an additional fracture in the right lower leg, a fracture of the left upper arm, a fracture at the base of the left big toe, a compression fracture of the T7 vertebra and bruises to the right buttock, lower back, left torso and left thigh, according to the affidavit. The doctor said the injuries “are not accidental and are consistent with abuse.” Both children were placed in the care of the Department of Human Services, and the baby remained in the hospital.

Several of the witnesses Keech interviewed described how Knight handled the baby. A woman the couple lived with while Meredith was pregnant told Keech that Knight cared for the baby but overfed her, mixed formula in an 8-ounce bottle and saved and reheated leftovers, and that the baby developed thrush. He was “very lax” about supporting the baby’s head when he held her, she said, and when he performed the “bicycle” maneuver used to relieve gas in infants he would put his hands under the baby’s thighs and push her knees into her rib cage roughly. When she corrected him, the woman said, Knight would answer “this is my kid, I got it” and get aggravated. She evicted the couple, and they moved into a storage shed in another man’s backyard before moving into a room in his house, according to the affidavit.

That man told Keech he had seen a lot of arguing between the two but nothing physical, that he had not seen any rough handling of the baby, and that he was concerned about how her head and neck were not supported when she was picked up. The couple moved out of his house shortly after police interviewed them, he said.

A neighbor on High Road East told Keech that Knight asked her to watch the baby one day because the electricity at the couple’s home had been cut off for nonpayment and it was too hot inside for her. Knight brought diapers and food, told the neighbor the baby was fussy and showed her how to do the bicycle maneuver, the affidavit says. The baby was dropped off at 2 p.m. and picked up at 10 p.m.

Another neighbor told Keech that on the day the baby was taken to the emergency room, Knight and Meredith were “engaged in a loud argument.” The same neighbors described the couple’s older child, a toddler, as always dirty and hungry, eating from the dog and cat food bowls, and at times tied to a carport post with a child’s backpack leash, and said Meredith had slapped the toddler, pulled her hair and spanked her excessively. A hair follicle test on the toddler came back positive for THC and methamphetamine on July 14, Keech wrote.

Keech’s affidavit sought a warrant for Knight on the single endangering count. The return of service shows Keech served the warrant himself by arresting Knight. Meredith was booked into the jail about two hours after Knight on the same evening, also on an endangering charge and a $15,000 bond, according to the jail’s records.