A 39-year-old mother in Texas is accused of slamming her young daughter’s head into a wall as punishment, admitting to the abuse, then incredulously asking if such behavior is actually illegal before coaching the victim and her siblings to lie to police.
Katherine Crosby was taken into custody earlier this month and charged with one count of felony child injury, according to court records.
According to a probable cause affidavit obtained by Law&Crime, on June 6, a Child Protective Services (CPS) investigator observed Crosby’s daughter, whose age is redacted from documents but is under 14, with a bruised and swollen black eye. The child explained to the investigator that “when someone in their house gets angry, they get punched, their nose gets broken, they get black eyes, or their head gets banged into the door.”
“[The victim] stated’my mom did this to me and it hurt really bad,'” the affidavit reads. [She] stated that her mother, Katherine Crosby, placed her in the corner for misbehaving, and then walked over to her, grabbed the back of her head by her ponytail, and slammed her head into the wall, resulting in the black eve. [The victim] stated that her mother was angry with her, which was why she did this. [She] stated that it ‘hurt really bad.'”
Crosby’s daughter told police that her mother gave her the black eye on June 5, but it wasn’t the first time she’d been subjected to such alleged abuse. She also stated that her mother did not seek medical attention or provide ice for her injury, according to police.
Crosby allegedly admitted to harming her daughter during a subsequent police investigation.
“Crosby admitted to banging [the victim’s] head into the wall,” according to the affidavit. “Crosby said, ‘Yes, I did it.’ Crosby then demonstrated how she did it in the same way that [the victim] claimed it happened. Crosby said, “What can’t I do?” [The investigator] told her she couldn’t do that to her child or children because it was child abuse.
On June 26, Crosby, the alleged victim, and the alleged victim’s sisters participated in forensic interviews at the Garth House. The investigator stated that before the interviews began, the alleged victim and her sisters claimed their mother “told them to lie” and “say that she didn’t physically harm” the victim.
The victim claimed Crosby told her to tell investigators that “she fell on a brick, which is why her eye was black and swollen.” According to police, the victim’s sisters claimed that their mother also coached them to blame their sibling’s injury on a brick.
According to the affidavit, the victim then said, “Wait, was I supposed to say that I tripped on a brick because that is what my mother told me?”
Crosby allegedly attempted to recant her initial confession and persuade the CPS investigator to question the children again about her daughter’s injury at a CPS meeting the next day.
“I want you to ask the girls again, in front of me, what happened to [the victim’s] eye because they will all tell you that I did not do anything to [the victim],” she said, according to the declaration.
Crosby was detained and processed at the Tyler County Jail on July 9 in lieu of a $125,000 bond before being released the next day, according to records. The date of her next hearing was not immediately known.
