LOGAN COUNTY — A mother in Logan County is looking for answers after she says babysitters abused her son.
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Aubrey Kelley reached out to News Center 7 after she said prosecutors would not file charges.
As reported on News Center 7 at 11:00, Kelley said she noticed a red mark on her 1-year-old son Beau’s cheek last December.
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The couple who babysat were Kelley’s friends and they sent her a picture of her son, but what she saw caused concern.
“The very first picture she sent was just like a front-facing picture of him, and she said that he had just like, woken up, and, like, his face is a little red,” she said.
She decided to take a closer look while picking him up from the babysitter.
“That’s when I noticed that it was definitely handprints,” Kelley said.
Kelley took pictures but gave her friends the benefit of the doubt.
But the next day, things were looking worse.
“That’s when I really noticed it, and I immediately took him to the police department and filed the report,” Kelley said.
Bellefontaine police said the marks were handprints and she needed to take Beau to the hospital.
Kelley said she wanted to give the babysitters a chance to explain.
“Changed from ‘Oh, he was sleeping the entire time’ to ‘Well, you know when you first dropped him off, he was running around, and he did fall a couple of times, but he never cried,’” Kelley said.
Officers interviewed the couple. According to their statements, they thought it could be an allergic reaction because the woman had hair dye on her hands when she changed his bottle.
Police sent the case to the Logan County Prosecutor’s Office. The office decided to send the case to the Bellefontaine Prosecutor’s Office to consider misdemeanor charges.
News Center 7 reached out to both offices.
The Logan County Prosecutor’s Office told News Center 7 that they thought the abuse happened while in the couple’s care, but could not move forward with a case because the injuries weren’t serious and could not determine which person abused the child.
Kelley said she’s still trying to fight for her son, but it’s hard.
“It’s been really stressful, you know, losing a lot of sleep over it,” she said.
Kelley said the city’s prosecutor told the family they were not going to file charges either, but did not provide a reason why.
News Center 7 reached out to the prosecutor but never got a response.
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