After a three-month-old child was airlifted to Riley Hospital last week suffering from fractured ribs and multiple brain bleeds due to severe head trauma that doctors believed was not “accidental” but was “inflicted” upon the child, a detective from the Indiana State Police and a family case manager from the Department of Child Services responded to investigate. A 19-year-old rural Linton man is now in jail and has been charged with neglect and battery that resulted in serious bodily injury.   

Adrian Scott Francis, 19, Linton, was arrested at Riley Hospital in Indianapolis by Indiana State Police Detective Ian Matthews on Wednesday morning, October 27. Francis was transported to the Greene County Jail where he was booked in at 8:27 a.m.

Shortly after midnight last Wednesday, October 27, at 12:04 a.m., ISP Detective Matthews was asked to respond to Riley Children’s Hospital in Indianapolis. A three-month-old child from the Linton area had been air lifted to Riley with injuries to his brain/head, his chest, and possibly other areas of his body.

The same child had also suffered a leg injury back in September. That incident was investigated by the Indiana State Police and the Department of Child Services (DCS) but no charges were filed at that time. DCS Family Case Manager (FCM) Karen Roach was assigned to the case and she also responded to Riley last Wednesday.

After Det. Matthews and FCM Roach arrived in Riley’s Critical Care Unit where the baby was being cared for by a team of doctors and nurses, they met with Riley Hospital’s social worker assigned to the child who told them there were multiple areas of trauma to the baby’s head, which had caused multiple brain bleeds. She said doctors’ notes indicated the child’s eyes were deviated and there had been reports of seizures. The social worker said law enforcement was contacted because the baby’s injuries did not appear to be accidental but appeared to have been inflicted.

The child’s father, Adrian Francis, age 19, and the child’s mother, age 16, were at the hospital with their child. The child’s maternal grandmother, age 35, had been there when the child first arrived but had left to go back to her home in rural Linton where the child lived along with Francis and the child’s mother, and two other juveniles who were the grandmother’s children. Francis later said he’d lived there with his girlfriend (the child’s mother) for about a year and had been dating the child’s mother for about two years – since he was 17. He also said he worked for the grandmother’s cleaning company.

Prior to meeting with Adrian Francis, the detective and family case manager got an update on the baby’s condition when they met with one of the main doctors that had been working on the baby. Her brief report was that the child’s current condition was stable with the main concerns being neurological and respiratory issues, that the child had at least one seizure, the child had verified brain bleeds as a result of trauma to the head, and that preliminary results indicated the child had multiple rib fractures. The doctor also said when the child was admitted, he had lethargic vomiting and pyloric stenosis, which is a narrowing of the opening of the stomach to the small intestine that prevents food from reaching the small intestine.

When they talked to Francis, they learned his son had soreness and swelling of a knee in September when he was around two months old but Francis said a doctor told them it was a minor buckle fracture and they determined it occurred when his son’s leg got twisted as the child’s siblings were holding him in a blanket.

When Francis was asked what happened to his son this time, he first said it might have happened a couple of weeks earlier when he picked his son up out of a swing and hit his head on the top of the swing. He said a “goose egg” developed on his son’s forehead but within minutes, his son was acting normal. But he acknowledged the doctors said there was “fresh bleeding” on his son’s brain which made him think it wasn’t caused by the swing.

Francis allegedly said he first noticed something was wrong with his son on Saturday night, October 23. He’d been alone with his son while his girlfriend and the grandmother went to get their nails done. He said when he burped the child, he let out a shrill cry then swung him on the porch swing for a while before putting him down for a nap. When the two women got home and his son woke up, Francis said he was vomiting, acting “out of it” and “clearly not himself.” He allegedly said his son was worse on Sunday with vomiting, being fussy and in a daze-like state. By Sunday night, the child was not doing good at all and by Monday he was not okay and had projectile vomiting three times. He said they took the child to a doctor who told them to keep an eye on the child and take him to the ER immediately if he wasn’t better within 24 hours. Francis said by Tuesday, his son looked “horrible” and “lifeless” with a pale skin color and hazy look in his eyes. He said they took the child to the Sullivan Medical Center and from there, he was airlifted to Riley.

After going over what had happened, the detective then went over the facts a second time with Francis, who said when his girlfriend and the grandmother got home on Saturday, the child did not look right and all three of them were in the room when his son was crying a weaker cry and you could tell something was wrong.  

Francis allegedly admitted there was some tension between him and his girlfriend and he was upset with her when she left to go to a nail appointment. The detective told him he was concerned that something had happened when they were gone that caused such a difference in his son by the time they got home.

At that point, Francis told a more truthful story and said when the women left, he was holding his son in a cradle-like hold on the swing on the porch while swinging side-to-side really hard while cussing about his relationship with his girlfriend.

According to the probable cause affidavit prepared by Det. Matthews, “He said that at first he thought the swing itself was hitting the porch, but soon realized he was repeatedly hitting his son’s head ‘really hard’ against the post of the porch for what he estimated as ‘at least 10 minutes.’ Adrian described the post that he was hitting his son’s head on as part of the outer edge of the porch.”

Francis allegedly said he felt bad about what he did and was so sorry. The detective reminded him that he had at least three days to tell someone what happened and potentially get help for his son, but he chose not to.

When the family case manager asked Francis about his son’s broken ribs, he allegedly said he probably caused those injuries when he rotated his son so his son’s chest was against his own chest and his forearm was across his son’s upper back. He said he was pressing hard on his son’s back and after squeezing him with enough pressure to have broken ribs, he carried his son inside and about an inch away from a bassinet, threw the child down. The child’s head snapped back from the impact.

Francis allegedly said he knew he had lied to everyone and that it was only him who caused the injuries.

At the conclusion of the interviews, Detective Matthews informed Francis he was under arrest. Francis was handcuffed and Det. Matthews transported him to jail in Greene County – booked in before 8:30 a.m. with bond set at $30,000 surety with ten percent cash allowed.

Francis has not posted bond. But he had another criminal case pending against him in connection with stolen vehicles. To read more about his previous case on GreeneStreets, click the Tag below this story for “Adrian Scott Francis.” In that case of auto theft, a negotiated plea agreement was filed last summer and a change of plea hearing was set for today, Thursday, November 4. However, on Tuesday, Greene County Chief Deputy Prosecutor Keven McIntosh filed a petition to revoke bond because Francis had violated a condition of bond release. The court approved, canceled today’s hearing and issued a warrant for the arrest of Francis – it was read to him in jail. So in the auto theft case, he’s being held without bond.

In the latest case involving the child, Francis has been charged with:

• Domestic battery resulting in serious bodily injury to a person under the age of 14, a Level 3 felony, and

• Neglect of a dependent – defendant placed dependent in a situation that endangers the dependent, a Level 6 felony.

No additional information or updates about the condition of the child has been released.