Continuance granted in alleged child abuse case
WAYNESBURG – A continuance of a plea hearing was granted Wednesday in the case of Bobby Sammons, 23, of 105 Ford St., Dilliner, charged with causing numerous injuries to his infant daughter in 2013.
Sammons’ attorney, Harry Cancelmi, told the court he was having a pediatric radiologist look over medical records of the baby and requested additional time. Judge Farley Toothman scheduled the hearing to resume at 1:30 p.m. March 11.
State police were called to Ruby Memorial Hospital in Morgantown, W.Va., July 31 to investigate the alleged case of child abuse. It was estimated several bone breaks dated to May 25 when the child was just three days old, according to the criminal complaint filed before Greene County Magisterial District Judge Lee Watson.
Dr. Jeffrey Lancaster showed police X-rays of the child taken at birth at Ruby Memorial Hospital and those taken when she was brought in with a broken right femur bone. Lancaster said there were no breaks in the first X-rays but subsequent ones indicated four healing rib fractures on the left side, two healing rib fractures on the right to the middle and healing left radius and ulna bones near the wrist. Dr. Michael Cunningham, a radiologist at the hospital, also viewed the X-rays and reported additional factures to the tibial bones on the right and left lower legs that were healing.
When police arrived at the child’s hospital room she was lying in bed with a sling on both of her legs for a right femur bone fracture, police said. Doctors told police the “femur fracture was suspicious for nonaccidental trauma.”
Police said Sammons initially told them the family dog jumped onto the bed while he was out of the room and may have injured the baby. According to police, Sammons later changed his story. He told them he was changing the baby’s diaper. When he reached across the bed for a clean one, his knee went into the baby’s hip and he heard her leg pop, according to the criminal complaint.
The baby’s mother, Ashley Renee Cordwell, 18, was charged with endangering the welfare of children and recklessly endangering another person. She is free on bond.
Cordwell is currently being held in Greene County jail on $50,000 straight cash bond.