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Howardville man arrested after child’s liver lacerated
NEW MADRID, Mo. — A man is jail on charges of child abuse after a child was hospitalized after being in his care.
Zachary Rucker, 26, of Howardville is being held in the Pemiscot County Jail on charges of abuse of a child-serious emotional or physical injury and endangering the welfare of a child. Rucker turned himself into law enforcement as an investigation got underway Saturday, said New Madrid County Sheriff Terry Stevens.
According to the probable cause statement filed by Zach Albright, a New Madrid County Sheriff’s Department investigator, he was called to a residence in Lilbourn in reference to an injured child. The child’s mother stated when she got home from work, she checked on her children and one complained of her stomach hurting.
In an effort to comfort the child, the mother said she began bathing the toddler and “noticed (the child) had some marks on her back and her stomach was a ‘little red’,” Albright wrote in the probable cause. He said the child told the mother “Daddy hit her.”
The woman told the officer she then called the police and took the child to Missouri Delta Medical Center in Sikeston to be evaluated. Albright stated while at the hospital he photographed bruising that was forming on the child’s stomach.
Hospital officials determined the child’s liver was lacerated and as a result the child was transferred to a hospital in St. Louis, Albright stated.
In an affidavit from the attending doctor at the St. Louis hospital, Albright said he was advised the child had multiple bruises. The doctor noted evidence of severe abdominal trauma including liver lacerations and pancreatic injury.
Rucker denied all the allegations at the scene.
According to the probable cause statement, during an interview at 8:45 p.m. Saturday, with Deputy Ruben White, “Rucker admitted while play fighting with (the child) he hit her in the stomach too hard. When asked how he knew it was too hard, Mr. Rucker stated she put her hand over her stomach and looked scared.”
Albright wrote that Rucker said he apologized to the child then had the child to “to put her hands back up and for her to be tough.”
After dinner, Rucker said the child complained of stomach pain and vomited twice.
In seeking the warrant charging Rucker, New Madrid County Prosecuting Attorney Andrew Lawson noted Rucker had pleaded guilty to endangering the welfare of a child on June 27, 2017.
Bond for Rucker is $250,000 bond and he was ordered to have no contact with the child.