A Florida mother was arrested nearly two years after her infant daughter was discovered unresponsive with life-threatening injuries, and the details of the night in question reveal what police believe is a troubling sequence of events.
Kelly Ward, 22, has been charged with child neglect resulting in great bodily harm, according to Volusia County court records. The offense is thought to have occurred on November 8, 2023, a cold night by Florida standards.
Ward and her “on again, off again boyfriend” arrived at her DeLand home around 10 p.m. on November 7, according to a non-arrest affidavit obtained by Law&Crime. Between now and 2 a.m. the next morning, they left the house at least once with the baby. This boyfriend was allegedly not the 3-month-old girl’s father, but he was the father of the fetus Ward was carrying.
According to the court document, nine people lived at the house, including Ward’s mother, and each had their own version of what happened that night.
The residents reportedly disagreed on whether Ward’s boyfriend could stay the night. One of them told police that he gave her a “weird ‘vibe,'” and she suspected “something was possibly going on with him and the children.” But he did stay the night, with the intention of taking Ward to a doctor’s appointment the next morning.
Ward, her baby, and her boyfriend were outside at least once during the four hours between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. The child’s presence perplexed many of the home’s residents, who awoke on and off because the temperature was in the mid-50s and “too cold for the baby to be outside.”
The baby is said to have fallen asleep between 2 and 3 a.m., but in a frantic state, “crying and screaming” and appearing to be “having night terrors due to swinging her arms in her sleep.”
At around 6 a.m. that morning, one resident reported waking up and seeing “the boyfriend” standing in the hallway. The woman stated that he was not holding the baby or speaking to anyone. When some of the home’s residents awoke around 8 a.m., the child was “lethargic,” one of them told police. The baby “would not open her eyes and appeared very pale,” she explained.
Others told police that when they awoke, the child was crying normally, and “everything appeared to be normal.” Ward’s boyfriend checked on the baby, and Ward rushed to prepare for her doctor’s appointment, for which she had woken up too late, according to the affidavit.
Ward and his boyfriend returned around 11 a.m., but Ward’s mother had already checked on the child. When her diaper was changed, the baby was “wheezing” and less “fussy” than usual, according to her. The infant had bruises on her abdomen, according to the affidavit, but no one called 911 until nearly 11:40 a.m.
Scratch marks were also discovered on the child, and some residents, including Ward, told police that one of the home’s two dogs stepped on the child while attempting to cross the bed. The responding EMS workers were skeptical.
According to the court document, they “did not believe the dog could have caused the bruising and requested law enforcement to respond.” Ward identified the dog that stepped on the child as a chihuahua weighing “7.58 pounds with a.16-pound harness on.”
Bodycam footage captured the startling moments when authorities arrived on the scene. Outside the home, a first responder took the baby from a deputy and inquired about the medication the baby was on.
Shortly after, the deputy with the camera informs him that the infant “had some type of throat surgery a while ago” and had been released from the hospital about a month prior. The video shows several of the residents outside, but Ward’s boyfriend is not present.
Ward and her boyfriend gave police separate accounts of what happened, admitting that “they were the last two individuals” with the baby before she was placed in her bassinet that night. The boyfriend, whose then-1-month-old daughter’s arm was allegedly broken in a separate incident with another woman, described Ward as inattentive and preferring to be elsewhere than with her daughter. Ward provided her own account, but investigators discovered inconsistencies in her statements.
More than a month after Ward’s child’s injuries were first reported, law enforcement asked Ward to call her boyfriend and allow them to listen in. During the phone call, she asked him what happened to the child while she was not present, “even if it was by accident.”
“During the conversation, [the boyfriend] became irritated and stated he will not take angry management again,” according to the deposition. “It should be noted, [the boyfriend] had to take angry management after his one-month old daughter’s arm was broken in a different case that occurred in Polk County Florida.”
“Kelly then told [the boyfriend] that she was going to do a lie detector test, and asked [him] if he would, which he stated he would not do one,” the lawsuit states. [The boyfriend] informed Kelly that he was told the lie detector test is not admissible in court. Kelly then told [him] that she knew he would never intentionally hurt [the baby], but she asked if he accidentally fell asleep with the baby while holding her, which he denied.
While the police documents stated that Ward and her boyfriend had been charged with aggravated child abuse, Law&Crime found no record of either of them facing that charge.
The medical report on the baby’s injuries concluded that she was “a victim of life-threatening nonaccidental trauma.” An investigator also quoted the doctor who cared for the baby as saying “the injuries are not of natural causes and were consistent with Shaken Baby Syndrome, also known as Shaken Impact Syndrome.” It is unclear what the child’s current medical status is.
According to court records, Ward was booked into the Volusia County Jail on August 4 and appeared in court the next day. She was released on August 9 and will be arraigned on August 28.
