Mother Charged With Smothering 5-Month-Old Son | Crime

A 24-year-old woman has been charged with smothering her five-month-old son by pinching his nose and covering his mouth.

Katie Elaine Lewis of Hutchinson is charged with third degree assault, child endangerment, and domestic assault by strangulation for the May 2 incident.

According to the criminal complaint, police got a 911 call from an employee at Children’s Hospital in St. Paul on Wednesday, May 2. The staff members were concerned because Lewis said her son would often turn blue and stop breathing, but they found nothing wrong with him.

According to the criminal complaint, staff members told Lewis they couldn’t find anything wrong with the child and that he would be released from the hospital in a few hours.

Around 5:30 p.m. that day, a staff member allegedly saw Lewis pinching the child’s nose while covering his month, causing the boy to “kick frantically when he could not breathe,” according to the complaint. He then went limp and unresponsive.

The staff member stepped in to stop the act.

Lewis later told investigators that her child stopped breathing several times since February 2012. She told police that she wanted to “do something so that medical staff could find something and help [her child] sooner.”

A Minnesota Children’s Resources Center director said she believed the child had sustained “substantial bodily harm,” according to the complaint.