A 5 ½-month-old girl died on New Year’s Eve.
“It was reported that the victim was suffering from multiple injuries to include skull fractures, brain bleeds, and a broken left leg,” Harford County Sheriff’s detectives wrote in charging documents. “There was also bruising on both eyes which the doctors believed were from retinal hemorrhaging.”
Detectives believe her mother, 32-year-old Maya Dennis, had sole care and custody.
During an interview, Dennis offered investigators multiple accounts of how the baby got hurt.
“She first told detectives that earlier on 12/28/24, one of her other children was running in the home and accidentally fell on the victim,” charging documents state. “She later told detectives that the injuries on the eyes were caused by medication that the victim was taking. She reported the medication makes the victim’s eyes swell which normally subsides within an hour.”
In an attempt to collect more evidence, investigators searched phones belonging to Dennis.
They reportedly found messages Dennis sent suggesting her daughter’s injuries were from complications experienced in the NICU at birth.