BEULAH — The case against a Benzie County woman charged with assault with intent to commit murder and first-degree child abuse has been bound over to 19th Circuit Court.
Christina Kay Crow, 40, of Thompsonville, will face those charges in connection with the serious injuries sustained by her 5-year-old daughter last April. Both felony charges are punishable, upon conviction, by up to life in prison.
An April 20 well-being check led deputies to become concerned with the whereabouts of Crow’s daughter. Officers said they found the child approximately 90 minutes later in a wooded area behind the home with serious injuries to her neck and face.
Judge John Mead found probable cause to move the case forward after listening to testimony from four Benzie County Sheriff’s deputies, a paramedic and the girl’s father, Justin Rogge.
Body camera footage showed the moment the pajama-clad child was found outside under a blanket on a chilly April day, Deputy Martin Blank testified. She kept telling deputies, “I was alive.”
Testimony and video evidence indicated the girl repeatedly told several responders that her mom hurt her and said her eye injury was caused by her mother and a pair of scissors found at the scene.
Rogge, who said Crow had allowed him only minimal contact with his daughter since she was 4, said the child is “doing OK.” He said she still has scars on her neck and her back is healing, but doctors aren’t sure if she’ll regain the vision in her left eye.
He said she still “wakes up around 2 a.m. in the morning and comes to find me.”
The child was hospitalized for a week as a result of the injuries, which included multiple shallow cuts on the girl’s neck, a wedge fracture of the spine and an eye injury that the girl said was caused by her mother.
“These are not accidental injuries,” Mead said.
Crow’s attorney Eric O’Hearn said, “No one’s disputing that this child has suffered a tragic injury.”
But O’Hearn argued that the prosecution had not demonstrated there was an attempt or admission that Crow wanted the child dead. He pointed to testimony from a deputy that Crow seemed genuinely surprised when they told her they had found the child.
Benzie County Prosecuting Attorney Sara Swanson said Crow lied to officers by telling them the child was with her grandmother and that testimony from Ella Simmons, who is with the county jail administration, indicates there may have been intent.
Simmons testified that, during a pat-down search at the jail, Crow told her in front of two other deputies that they had “interrupted a sacrifice.”
Mead said he did not rely on that testimony though; he said he looked at previous case law which indicated that “actions taken after can demonstrate intent to kill.”
The child was left outside, when temperatures were between 34 and 41 degrees, in pajamas, Mitchell Smith, a paramedic, testified.
The child’s body temperature was below normal and they were concerned about hypothermia, Smith said.
Mead said that, because Crow told officers the child wasn’t with her, “the court views this as an attempt to hide (the child) to the point where she would have ended up dying from exposure, most likely.”