Council Bluffs Police arrested Rodney Weatherwax for allegedly abusing a five-month-old baby.
The child was taken to a hospital and admitted for failure to thrive, meaning he wasn't gaining enough weight.
The doctors did an x-ray on the infant and found 20 fractures throughout his body.
“The x-ray show the fractures and they are in numerous stages of healing,” said Pottawattamie County Assistant District Attorney, Shelly Sudmann.
Sudmann said the severity of the abuse was immediately alarming, “Any time a child that is under the age of a year has 20 different fractures of the body including the injuries on this child, it is certainly disturbing.”
The arrest affidavit shows that Weatherwax is not the baby’s father, but is dating his mother. According to the affidavit, the mother spoke with police and said that “Weatherwax admitted to punching the baby in the face.” The affidavit also said the baby’s grandmother stated that "the baby always seemed like he was hurting." Investigators said, “Weatherwax admitted that he and the mother would use cocaine, annex, alcohol, and weed while taking care of the baby.”
Right now the mother is not being charged with anything
“The good news for this child is, the injuries he sustained are broken bones primarily, and little guys have an ability to heal and hopefully not remember, so if he is placed with the right family members he should continue to thrive,” said Sudmann.
Weatherwax is facing child endangerment, child neglect, and two counts of willful injury. He could be facing 80 years of jail time.
