A football coach was arrested after the death of a 10-month-old girl, who was raped and she later succumbed to her injuries, as per reports. The father is accused of raping the girl before Googling 'how to tell if a baby is dead'.
Austin Stevens from Pennsylvania has been charged with aggravated sexual assault, rape of the child, involuntary deviant sexual intercourse, aggravated indecent assault, and also endangering the welfare of a child among other criminal counts, as reported by the Mail Online.
Baby Allegedly Raped by Father
The man was arrested following the death of the girl named Zara Scruggs. On Saturday night at around 10.40 pm, the cops were called to the property following reports of an unresponsive baby, as per a press release by the Montgomery County District Attorney's Office. After reaching the spot, the cops performed CPR on the girl before taking her to the Einstein Medical Center Montgomery where she was pronounced dead.
After obtaining a search warrant, police found multiple Google searches on the phone of Steven including, "If baby stop breathing," "What if you don't hear baby heart or beat," "My baby isn't breathing," and "How do you know if a baby is dead." The man allegedly searched on the search engine for an hour before calling the paramedics to attend to his daughter, as per prosecutors.
During that time he also messaged a woman on a social media platform without stating his daughter was dying. As the police searched the property they found a diaper that the girl had been wearing during the time of the alleged rape, it was filled with blood, as per reports.
Ther girl sustained rectal trauma and blunt force trauma to the head. "This case is deeply disturbing. It is hard to imagine this child's death being any more traumatic: sexual assault on an infant, followed by inaction by the father to save her life, led to her death," Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele stated.
Stevens is currently being held in jail on $1 million bail. A preliminary hearing is set for October 13. The mother of the girl took to social media and wrote, "I'm not okay. I really have no words ... He will pay." A relative of the girl has launched a GoFundMe page for helping the mother.
