NEWS AND COMMENT: A Minnesota man, Kristopher Henderson, has been charged with murdering his baby child of 2-months-of-age. However, he allegedly blamed the family cat for leaving his child with severe injuries including broken legs and ribs. He was trying to pass off the killing on his cat.
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| A Minnesota man, Kristopher Henderson, has been charged with murdering his baby child of 2-months-of-age but he initially blamed the family cat. Image: Blue Earth County Jail. |
His baby died in hospital after he allegedly inflicted severe injuries. After initially blaming the cat for injuries that no domestic cat could cause, he admitted to hitting his child forcefully to try and quieten her. '
Henderson was initially charged with first-degree assault which was upgraded to 2nd-degree murder with intent. He appears to have also been charged with first-degree manslaughter while committing malicious punishment to a child. It looks as though there are two alternative charges because one might be more applicable than the other once the court case starts. He is on bail at US$1 million.
This is absolutely mind-blowingly tragic but from my perspective it is also bizarre in that, allegedly, Henderson felt that he could get away with the ridiculous excuse that his domestic cat caused these horrific injuries.
As he has admitted hitting his child forecefully he is going to be convicted in my opinion. I'm an outsider to this but although it looks very much like murder it is probably manslaughter as he probably did not intend to kill the infant (lack of mens rea - intent). It appears that the red mist descended and he lost all sense of reason and self-control.
Source: New York Times.
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