Losing one’s temper is a given when it comes to parenting, but for Minneapolis dad Cory Morris, he took the idiom into an altogether different and terrifying heights.
According to a Washington Post report, the father was watching his four-month-old daughter Emersyn one weekend while his girlfriend was gone to work.
At one point, the infant began to fuss and make noises.
The 21-year-old father carried her into her room and placed her on a changing table to help assuage her discomfort.
When Emersyn continued to make noises, the irate father began punching the four-month-old.
Photo credit: The Washington Post / Hennepin County Jail
“He admitted he punched her approximately fifteen times in the face with a closed fist,” the incident documents said. “He stated he punched her approximately seven times in the chest with a closed fist. Defendant admitted squeezing her chest with both hands.”
Cory Morris has been charged with the second-degree murder of her daughter.
At a news conference, Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman said that the people working on the case found the incident hard to comprehend.
“I’m a proud father of five and a grandfather of two,” he said. “There’s nothing more important in my life than my children and my grandchildren. What is this? Why? Frankly, right now, we don’t know.”
According to the Washington Post report, the father himself called the crime in, telling a 911 dispatcher that he had killed his own child.
The probable-cause statement said that when the firefighters arrived, they discovered the child “lying in a pool of blood.”
“Officers observed the blood spatter all over the wall and floor near the changing station in the baby’s room,” the statement said.
The officers noted, too, that the father’s hands, arms, and clothing were all covered with dried blood.
Talking to investigators, Morris’ girlfriend said that he watched the child three to four times a week while she was at work, and that he “can go from happy to mad easily.”
Meanwhile, in a Star Tribune report, Morris’ mother Ginny Morris said they never thought he would hurt the baby.
“We would never allow him to be with the baby if that was the case,” she said. “We were worried he was going to hurt himself, not the baby.”
The Star Tribute also said:
Family members say that although they’d long been trying to get Morris psychological help, he never showed violent tendencies, and it was typical for him to watch the baby on his own. After police arrived and spoke with Morris, Freeman said, the father expressed no remorse. He would later tell law enforcement that he was schizophrenic and heard voices.
Freeman said a full psychological evaluation on Morris will be completed but that his depiction of his state of mind has since changed.
“There’s all sorts of different stories from him,” he said.
When asked about the baby’s mother, Attorney Mike Freeman simply said: “She’s shocked.”
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