Friday, August 15, 2008

Michael Below and his Daughter

I don't know how a father could do this to his baby girl.

WEST BEND -- A terrible case of child abuse in Washington County: a 2-month-old girl is in critical condition at Children’s Hospital.

Her father is in jail.

Friends of the family say Madison Below is on a respirator and fighting for her life at the hospital. They say it makes them angry that the innocent child was victim of her father's rage.

911 Call: “My 9-week-old daughter is breathing kind of rapidly and she's been fussy now for about an hour and a half.”

That is the call 911 call Madison's mother made to police. Turns out, the infant's injuries were far worse.

Police say Madison has severe brain damage after being beaten by her father Michael Below.

...Investigators say Michael abused Madison inside his West Bend apartment while her mother was working. “I had no clue no clue whatsoever that he could do something like that,” [family friend Dawn] Schloemer said.

In the criminal complaint, Below admits to dropping Madison on the floor and then pushing her head down hard on a table several times because she wouldn't stop crying. He told investigators he did it because he lost control and was stressed out.

...Doctors say Madison has skull fractures and signs of broken ribs and brain bleeding. If she survives, they believe she will suffer permanent and severe brain damage.

...Meanwhile Michael Below sits in jail, charged with two felonies and looking at spending several decades in prison.

How could he?

It's truly sickening.


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More details in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

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UPDATE, August 25, 2008:
Washington County District Attorney Todd Martens said today that an amended complaint charging a West Bend man with homicide will be filed later today in connection with the death of a 2-month-old girl.

The girl's father, Michael D. Below, 30, had been charged with child abuse and is in custody at the Washington County Jail in lieu of $50,000 bail.

Below is accused of holding the infant by her feet and banging her head several times on a wooden changing table, according to a criminal complaint filed in the case.

The baby was removed from life support at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin in Wauwatosa late last week and died Saturday after having been hospitalized since Aug. 10.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Madison died on Saturday.

Anonymous said...

Having a 7 month old daughter myself, this story literally made me sick. I hope he gets what he deserves once the inmates of wherever he goes, finds out what he actually did to get in prison.

Mary said...

It's absolutely heartbreaking.

I think of how my husband lovingly cradled our babies and then I think of what Below did to his infant daughter.

What he did to Madison is an unspeakable act.