Mother Accused Of Killing Special Needs Child In Hospital After She Threw Crayons

A Florida mother has been accused of killing her special needs daughter while the latter was in a hospital bed. The woman apparently got angry after the girl broke and threw coloring crayons in her hospital room.

Jessica Bortle, 34, was arrested on Aug. 14 in Bonifay on charges of killing her 14-year-old daughter at a hospital in Pensacola last month. She admitted to slamming a hospital table into the girl's abdomen out of anger, crushing her liver, as per her arrest report. Bortle also said after slamming the table, she leaned her weight on it, causing the child grievous injuries.

The teen girl, who had been hospitalized to treat an infection, fell unconscious and died on July 13, Pensacola News Journal reported.

Bortle was shifted to Pensacola on Monday and booked into the Escambia County Jail. She made her first court appearance Tuesday afternoon and the court set her bond at $500,000.

An autopsy revealed that the child's liver was "ripped open due to blunt force trauma." The teen girl also suffered injuries "similar to those found of traffic crash victims" to her ribs and her liver, according to the medical reports.

Medics observed that the child did not have any of these injuries while she was admitted to the hospital on July 8. Police said the victim was a patient with special needs who had a neuromuscular disorder.

“The medical examiner indicated that the injuries were so severe that the victim would have died only minutes after receiving them and that they had to have occurred while she was confined to her hospital bed,” Eric Randall, Police Chief said, News Channel 8 reported.

The victim's grandmother and Bortle were the only people in the child's room when the assault happened, the report said. The grandmother told police that she had witnessed the attack and had asked Bortle to calm down. A few minutes after Bortle's outburst, the grandmother said she heard the victim say "grandma" and her eyes were rolled back in her head, the report said.

Footage outside the victim's room showed Bortle leaving the room "shaking and flexing her hand as if in pain" moments before the child was found unconscious by the hospital staff.

Bortle remained in custody as of Tuesday afternoon.