10-Month-Old Kentucky Boy's Part Of Skull Removed After Assault, Mother's Boyfriend Charged

A Kentucky man was accused of assaulting a 10-month-old baby and was charged with criminal abuse on a child 12-and-under. The incident took place on Feb. 28 but charges against the man, the now ex-boyfriend of the child's mother, came Friday,

Covington police identified the accused as Darion Dietrich, 23. The child's mother, Renee Trenkamp, said that she went out to eat and left her son with her then-boyfriend, who called her within minutes after she sat down.

“He called me and he was crying really really hard,” Trenkamp said. " I asked, ‘What was wrong?’ And he kept telling me the baby, he wasn’t acting right. I said, ‘So I need to call an ambulance?’ And he said, ‘I don’t know.’ I asked if the baby was breathing, and he said, ‘I don’t know.’"

According to the arrest warrant, the baby was inside a house in the 100 block of Tando Way Drive, unconscious and unresponsive. The child was immediately taken to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.

The complaint says Dietrich told police he left him on the bed after changing a diaper. He went to check on the food he was cooking, but when he returned the child was on the floor.

“Yeah, it was, ‘He fell off the bed and hit the floor,’ and then it was, ‘He fell of the bed and hit a box in my room,’” Trenkamp said.

However, doctors said that the injuries sustained by the baby were not consistent with the event described by Dietrich.

The injuries were so bad, the infant had had a portion of his skull removed during surgery. The child was in critical condition and doctors were unsure if the baby would survive.

Trenkamp says doctors told her that her son will have difficulties when he grows up, but he is doing well now and recovering.

Dietrich is due back in court May 13. If convicted, he is facing 10-30 years in prison.

"I hope he get's what he deserves," the child's mother told local media.