Eagle Lake man accused of causing baby’s horrific injuries

An Eagle Lake man is behind bars, accused of causing horrific injuries to his girlfriend’s 20-month-old baby.

Daytin James Zimmerman-Fatis, 23, was charged Friday with felony 1st-degree assault in Blue Earth County Court.

According to a criminal complaint:

The child’s mother and another woman brought the baby to a local hospital on February 19 with bruises on his face and scalp.  The mother told doctors the baby had been fine the night before. The child was sent to Rochester for treatment.

Doctors discovered extensive bruising on the child’s face, and bruises on his chest, back, buttocks, stomach, and legs.  The boy had a broken blood vessel in his eye, and lacerations to his kidney, liver, and lower bowels.  He also suffered a spine fracture likely caused by abdominal trauma and a ligament injury to his spine.

The boy’s mother showed investigators a photo taken the previous day in which the child had no visible marks on his face.  She initially told police she left the home at 5:45 a.m. and Zimmerman-Fatis was still asleep, but later claimed he had given her a ride to work, where she clocked in at 5:55 a.m. She reported the baby was awake and not fussy when she left.

The mother said she’d received a photo of the baby at 6:41 a.m. when Zimmerman-Fatis told her he had removed the baby from the crib.  The child’s mother further reported that the baby thrashes around his crib when he has tantrums but has “never looked like this before.”

Zimmerman-Fatis and a juvenile female at the home called the mother several minutes after the photo was sent and said the baby “just woke up standing there with bruises on his face.”  Zimmerman-Fatis told the mother he didn’t know what happened and the baby was “beyond screaming” like someone had slapped him.

The woman who was with the mother at the emergency room told investigators Zimmerman-Fatis came to her home that day and told her there was a situation with bruising on the baby’s face.  The woman said she was “beyond herself” when she saw the child and advised he needed to be seen by a doctor immediately.  Zimmerman-Fatis told her they were concerned the child would be taken away from them.  The woman said she was so concerned the child’s mother would not take him to the hospital that she went with them.

In an interview with police that same day, Zimmerman-Fatis immediately asked if anybody was going to jail.  He told investigators the girl – who is under the age of 10 – went to the crib and the boy suddenly had bruises all over his face. Zimmerman-Fatis told police he asked the child “what the f**k” he was doing. “Like, why are you bruising yourself?”

Zimmerman-Fatis also claimed he heard noises “like a ghost” or somebody in the baby’s room “moving stuff.” He said he went into the room and the victim had a bruise on the side of his face.  He also claimed to have heard a bang a couple of hours later and noted a big scratch on the child’s side. He claimed the victim nodded in the affirmative when asked if he hit himself.

Zimmerman-Fatis told police the girl had been alone with the baby for about 15 to 20 minutes when he drove the child’s mother to work.  He reported that the baby had fallen on the floor that morning but stood up when the girl found him.  He said the baby had injured himself in the past while the adults were sleeping.

The girl told investigators they discovered the bruises when Zimmerman-Fatis woke up.  She indicated that perhaps someone was trying to break into the home, causing the baby’s injuries.

In a Feb 22 interview, police say Zimmerman-Fatis asked repeatedly if he was going to jail.  Police say he changed his story to say that he’d dropped the victim and the boy hit his spine on the floor while he was trying to get up.  He told investigators the victim had previously fallen off a stand and caught his head underneath the crib a few nights before his Feb 19 injuries, and also demonstrated hitting the boy’s head on a cupboard, saying it was accidental.

He claimed the couple had to stop the girl from shaking the baby in the past and claimed she had previously hit and kicked him.

Zimmerman-Fatis told police his dog is aggressive and likes to nitpick and bite and jump on the baby.  He said there were times he picked up the child very quickly and might have shaken him just enough to cause injuries and said this could have happened the morning the child was injured. He admitted to striking the baby in the head with an Xbox controller twice in the past few weeks when he became frustrated.  He told police the baby hit him in the head with a tool within the last month.

Doctors told investigators the boy’s injuries were consistent with child abuse and could not have been caused in the ways described by Zimmerman-Fatis.  They denied that a child of the girl’s age would be capable of causing such injuries.

The baby required surgery to install pins to stabilize his spine.

Zimmerman-Fatis is in custody in the Blue Earth County Jail.  Prosecutors have recommended $400,00 bail without conditions, or $150,000 with conditions.