A Jim Thorpe mother has been charged with aggravated assault and endangering the welfare of a child after an incident in which her 27-day-old baby suffered severe head trauma.

The baby’s father, Edward Bailey, was initially charged, but police charged Stephanie Graul after conversations with Bailey while he was in jail.

According to the affidavit of probable cause filed by Detective Lee Marzen of the Jim Thorpe Police Department:

On Feb. 19, Jim Thorpe Police received information from Carbon County Children and Youth that a report had been filed about an infant child who was brought to the Lehigh Valley Hospital, Cedar Crest campus in Allentown where it was reported that the child had seizures and vomiting.

The infant child was examined and determined to have suffered brain hemorrhage and ischemic brain tissue. The infant child has been intubated and is considered in critical condition at this time.

Bailey said at around 3:30-4 a.m. Feb. 19, he was walking down the steps cradling the child in his arm and fell down about three steps, landing on his elbow and stating that the child had fell out of his arms at this time. The infant child was placed to bed after this incident, and at around 7 a.m. the infant child began to have seizure.

The parents said they contacted Lehigh Valley Cedar Crest and then drove to Lehigh Valley Cedar Crest. Marzen arrived at the Lehigh Valley Children’s Hospital where the baby was admitted into the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit.

Bailey told Marzen that around 7 a.m. he noticed the infant child have “twitching” in her one hand, and also saw her in full seizures. Bailey stated he was scared and called the infant child’s mother to come home.

Bailey told Marzen he was frustrated with the infant child’s crying and wrote in his statement, “I couldn’t get her to stop crying so I lightly dropped her on the bed.” While he was not able to stop the infant child from crying, Bailey also told Marzen that he grabbed the infant child to take her downstairs and was still upset and while “speed walking” down the steps he lost his footing and stated, “me and the baby fell.”

On March 12, Marzen asked Graul, 26, the infant child’s mother, to come to the Jim Thorpe Police Department to discuss the ongoing case involving her 2-month-old minor child. Graul said that evening she was in bed, and that Bailey placed the baby on their bed because it had been crying so Bailey took her out of the room.

Graul said that Bailey had taken the infant child downstairs for her feeding and that a short time later she heard a “loud noise” from the hallway and asked Bailey if everything was OK. Graul said Bailey replied to her that everything was OK and she didn’t hear anything after the fall and Bailey told her that she fell asleep after the “bounce” and seemed “normal.”

Graul said Bailey brought the infant child back at some point but didn’t know the time and that she next saw the infant child at around 6:30 a.m., and that about a half-hour after she picked up the infant child she noticed she was “shaking” for about two minutes.

Graul said shortly after she arrived at work at 7:45 a.m., Graul said Bailey called her and said that the baby was not acting right.

Graul arrived back home around 8:30 a.m. and called a doctor’s office in Lehighton and said they don’t have a car and were asking people to borrow a vehicle to get the baby to the hospital.

Marzen asked Graul if she or Bailey called 911 and she said no because she knew that the ambulance wouldn’t be able to take both parents, the baby, and another minor child in the back of the ambulance.

Graul said they borrowed her grandmother’s vehicle to drive to the hospital.

Graul and Bailey said they did not take the Pennsylvania Turnpike but an alternate route to get to the hospital and arrived at the emergency room around 10 a.m. that morning.

At 12:21 p.m. March 26, Graul made a phone call to Bailey at the prison. Bailey said, “If it makes you feel any better honey, be mad at me, like I am not going to hate you.”

Police said Graul replied, “That’s the thing Daddy. I don’t want to be mad at you because I was there. I mean, I’m frustrated that you didn’t let me help, because we could’ve avoided it, if you would’ve let me help give you some time to get away from her, but you let your ego get to you. You decided you needed to be a big boy and do it yourself, when I knew you were struggling and you wouldn’t let me help you. Like if you would have just let me help you, we wouldn’t be here.”

Bailey replied, “... I should have left you help me honey and that is why now that I realize everything that is wrong with me, and how easily it is for me to get stuck into my own anger ... When I get out of here and all of this is said and done baby, I’m going to be different. I promise you.”

Graul is incarcerated in the Carbon County Correctional Facility in lieu of $50,000, 10-percent bail, and scheduled to have a preliminary hearing Wednesday before District Judge Eric M. Schrantz of Jim Thorpe.