Indiana Woman Charged with Multiple Felonies for Burning a Baby

(The AEGIS Alliance) – DELAWARE COUNTY, INDIANA – A woman in Indiana is facing multiple felony charges after she allegedly confessed to abusing an infant she was babysitting.

20-year-old Amber Vannatter was babysitting the 1-year-old girl for the baby’s mother, who went to work at around 3:30 p.m. on Friday, the Star Press reports. She is accused of injuring the baby with friction burns by holding the child’s torso and face against a treadmill while it was running.

It is also alleged that Vannatter used a cigarette lighter to injure the infant.

The babysitter dropped off the infant at her mother’s work at around 9:30 p.m. authorities said. The girl was then rushed to the IU Health Ball Memorial Hospital, where she was given treatment in the emergency room.

When Vannatter was asked why she abused the child, Vannatter said she “was depressed and the baby was crying,” according to Muncie police Detective Kris Swanson.

Officers arrested Vannatter and booked her into the Delaware County Jail on Saturday at about 4 a.m. Vannatter is facing charges that include neglect of a dependent, battery resulting in serious bodily injury to a person under 14 years of age, and battery on a person under 14 years of age.

Amber Vannatter was still in jail as of Tuesday and being held on a $60,000 bond.

Kyle James Lee – The AEGIS Alliance – This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.