Mom Violently Threw 10-Month-Old Son Across Room, Charged With Attempted Murder: Police

A 31-year-old woman in Albany County, New York, was arrested and charged Tuesday in connection with a series of brutal attacks against her 10-month-old son, police say.

Samantha Valentine has been charged with three counts of attempted murder in the second degree, assault in the second degree and endangering the welfare of a child, CBS 6 reported.

Valentine is accused of carrying out a series of attacks on her child in their Watervliet, New York, home over a four-day period, concluding on Oct. 16 when someone in the house called 911, court documents obtained by CBS 6 said.

In one instance, Valentine threw her son across a room, onto the floor, according to the felony complaint. The child suffered bleeding in his brain after hitting his head and face, the documents said.

Watervliet Police Chief Joseph Centanni said during a Wednesday press conference that one of the attacks prompted someone in the home to dial 911 on Oct. 16 saying the child wasn’t breathing.

The responding officer discovered “a child lying on his back in obvious distress” and initiated life-saving measures. The baby was rushed to the hospital where police determined that the infant’s injuries were “consistent with an assault.”

The child survived the attack. He is currently at Albany Medical Center where he is in stable condition, according to the police chief.

When asked to describe some of the attacks against the baby, Centanni became emotional.

“I’ve been doing this for a long time,” he was quoted by Law and Crime as saying. “What I will say is that through the investigation we have determined that there were a series of attacks on this child over a four-day period and quite candidly, I am not comfortable describing in detail the circumstances surrounding those attacks in public. And I’ll leave it at that.”

Police obtained footage of the assaults from a baby monitor camera in the child’s room, Centanni said.

Centanni did not disclose who in the residence called police, who else lived in the home with Valentine or whether she had other children in the home, which he described to be “unsanitary and uninhabitable.”

However, the police chief said that officers found six ferrets, four cats and “a lizard type of iguana” in the home, along with a deceased squirrel. The animals who survived were turned over to the Hudson Humane Society, where they are now “safe,” Centanni said.

Valentine was previously arrested on fraud, forgery and animal abuse charges in 2019. She posed as an employee of an area cat rescue and sold kittens that died soon after they were sold under suspicious circumstances.

Valentine is now being held at Albany County Correctional Facility without bail.