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Woman Beat And Shook Baby To Death For Tragic Reason

By Chelsea Hoffman
Published on: 19:33 PST, Jul 12, 2016

A three-and-a-half-month-old baby is dead, and authorities in Boscobel, Wisconsin say that her mother is to blame. KWWL News reports that 31-year-old Ranae Bellis has been arrested in association with the infant’s violent death after she had lied and tried to cover up her responsibility in the incident.

The heartbreaking incident took place on Saturday, when authorities were called to the residence inhabited by the Wisconsin mother and her family. It was there that police found the child dead under what appeared to be violent circumstances. However, at the time of the discovery of the unnamed infant’s death, it wasn’t 31-year-old Bellis who was arrested. Instead, authorities arrested the baby’s father, 39-year-old Mark Rand. That’s because Ranae Bellis had initially told police that she witnessed the man shaking and beating their three-and-a-half-month-old daughter.

WISC TV News reports that the Wisconsin mom contacted police the following day and admitted to them that she had lied. She said “she was sorry” and then provided a so-called explanation behind why she brutally beat and shook her own newborn baby. Bellis told police that she had been depressed at the time of the incident, and that she tried to give the baby a bottle, but the little girl was being fussy. She said that the baby kept screaming and refused to take the bottle, which led her to “snap” and react violently.

Bellis admitted to police that she not only slapped her baby in the face and on the body multiple times, but she also shook her violently while holding her at arms’ length. She admitted to using one of the child’s onesies to wipe away blood that had come from injuries that had been inflicted on the infant during the assault.

An autopsy found that the three-and-a-half-month-old infant had suffered numerous injuries, which led to her death. Examiners found multiple bruises on her torso, hands, legs, buttocks, head, neck and face. The baby had also suffered injuries associated with blunt force trauma, which caused blood pooling inside her skull and on her brain. There is no doubt that the helpless baby in this case suffered horrifying injuries, and suffered painfully in her final moments.

It’s not unheard of for a mother to “snap” and kill her own child. It’s also not entirely uncommon for crying and fussiness to be a factor in the assaults and deaths of babies — whether the crimes are committed by parents or other caretakers. In 2015, an Alabama child of only eight years reportedly beat a one-year-old baby to death because he wanted to stop her crying. The infant had been left in the child’s care by their mother, who left for the night to hang out at a nightclub.

In 2013, a deaf Texas couple were arrested after their five-month-old daughter was shaken and bashed to death. The most bizarre detail in this case is the fact that both parents are deaf, and the infant was violently slain because she wouldn’t stop crying. At the time of the incident, experts explained via media reports that the parents — although deaf — could still sense the crying through vibrations and visible cues, which frustrated them as it would other parents who can hear their children cry.

In this latest case out of Wisconsin, Ranae Bellis has provided a confession behind what happened to her baby. She has admitted to not only beating and shaking the little girl to death, but also to framing her own husband to avoid facing responsibility. While it’s fortunate that she eventually did the right thing and turned herself in to authorities, she is still being charged in association with the attempt to evade justice. Ranae Bellis has been charged with first-degree reckless homicide and obstructing an officer.

[Photo via Boscobel Police]

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