SHELBYVILLE, Ky. — Court records say the parents of a 4-month-old Kentucky boy who died last week have been charged with criminal abuse.
Police started an investigation when officers responded to a house on Indiana Ridge Drive in Shelbyville after receiving a 911 call about a child not breathing, according to an arrest citation.
The documents said police arrested the parents of the child after he died from a severe head injury.
Records say the infant had been in the care of his parents who were arrested Friday. They were identified as Joshua Stepp and Kristen Murphy.
Police reports don’t identify the child or say how he received the head injury.
For the fifth year in a row, a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services report found Kentucky ranked fourth in the nation for the number of child abuse and neglect cases reported.
In response to these troubling numbers, Sen. Julie Raque Adams, a Republican from Louisville, is sponsoring Senate Bill 8 she hopes will help lower that rate.
She said if approved, the measure would allow the Department for Community Based Services (DCBS) to open cases earlier.
Instead of requiring a child to be designated as "at-risk" of requiring out-of-home placement, DCBS would be able to get involved if a child was found to be at "moderate risk".
In 2020, the report found 16.7 per 1,000 children in Kentucky were victims of abuse or neglect. Maine, Alaska and West Virginia ranked above Kentucky that year. From 2017 to 2019, Kentucky outranked all other states for the number of child victims reported annually.
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The video below is from April 2021