Texas Man Allegedly Gnawed Off Part Of Infant’s Ear

A Texas man is facing prison time after he allegedly bit off part of a two-month-old infant’s ear. The Dreamin Demon reports that 17-year-old Juvenal Morales has been arrested and charged with at least one felony stemming from the incident.

Authorities allege that the infant’s mother wanted Morales to feed her, but after she handed the baby to him, he started crying. The crying became worse within minutes. According to reports, the infant started “screaming bloody murder,” which alerted the mother. That’s when she noticed that the Texas man was grinding his teeth with the baby’s ear in his mouth. When she took the baby from him she noticed that he had gnawed off part of his ear — a large portion of it, in fact.

Valley Central News 4 reports that the mother was able to get the infant to safety by running to a neighbor’s home for help. The child was taken to Valley Baptist Medical Center in Harlingen, Texas. Police were waiting for the mother and her injured child, where they interviewed her about the violent incident. She told police that not only had Morales gnawed off part of the baby’s ear, but he also threatened to kill her. Not long after she was interviewed by police, they arrested the 17-year-old man and charged him with felony injury to a child. It’s unclear at this time if he will face any other charges associated with the incident. He is currently being held in jail on $60,000 bond.

This isn’t the first time a parent has gone to animalistic measures to deal with a child’s crying. In 2014 a Texas mom was arrested after she reportedly bit and then threw her six-week-old baby. Authorities claimed at the time that Dawn Elizabeth Greene was intoxicated when the infant’s crying sent her into a rage. The child was treated for internal bleeding and had injuries all over his body, which included bite marks and bruising that came from being hit with an unknown object.

In 2014 a father from Northern California was arrested after he allegedly bit off his baby’s nose. Also in 2014, a U.K. dad was found guilty of murder after he bit his infant daughter, who was two-months-old at the time, before violently beating her to death. Aurimas Medvedevas, a Lithuanian immigrant, was sentenced to 22 years in prison. This year, in Guam, a couple were accused of child abuse after their child displayed bruises, burns, and bites on his body. Ultimately, the infant’s father was accused of biting his face in a violent assault.

It’s not uncommon for parents to abuse their own children. In fact, according to Safe Horizons, at least 45 percent of abused children are under the age of 5-years-old and are, more often than not, abused by members of their own family. In at least 80 percent of all child abuse cases, the parent(s) is revealed to be the perpetrator of the violence. Furthermore, 82.2 percent of parents guilty of child abuse fall between the ages of 18 and 44 years of age. So it goes to show that young parents are more likely to let their anger get the best of them while dealing with the frustrations of parenthood.

As far as this latest story of child abuse goes, the Texas dad accused of biting his son’s ear has not yet been released from jail. He has not yet appeared in court for arraignment on the charges he faces, but he could face as many as 99 years in prison in Texas for mutilating his child’s ear in the attack. In the meantime, the child is recovering from his injuries.

[Photo: San Benito Police mugshot]