Garner pleads no contest to child-abuse related charges

17414623



   

    

    Page Garner of Mountain Home pled no contest in Baxter County Circuit Court Tuesday to child abuse related charges and was given 10 years probation, with six months house arrest during which she must pay for and wear a GPS ankle monitor and be subject to an 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew.

    In addition to domestic battery in the 2nd degree, the 29-year-old Garner faced two counts of introducing a controlled substance into the body of another person.

    An investigation into the case was launched in mid-October last year when the Mountain Home Police Department received a report from personnel in the Emergency Room of Baxter Regional Medical Center that a two-year-old female had come to the ER with bruising of her feet, legs, back, arms and face. She was also reported to be bleeding from inside her mouth and had a large patch of hair missing which was described as having been “violently” pulled from the back of the little girl’s head.

    According to court records, controlled substances were also detected in the child’s system as well as the system of an older daughter in the home. Garner is the mother of both children. At one point in the investigation, Garner’s then live-in-boyfriend, Sean Ford, said he and Garner “typically” smoked marijuana in the residence, often in the same room with the two girls.

    Ford initially said that the two-year-old girl had fallen into her toybox, that he had gone to get her out and then had taken her to the bathroom and cleaned her up. When the older daughter was interviewed she told investigators that she was regularly placed in what she described as the “grounding room” at the residence. She said that she was in the grounding room on the day the younger daughter allegedly sustained her injuries. She said Ford took her younger sister into the garage. The older girl said she heard a loud slapping or stomping sound and that the younger girl began screaming and crying. She said that when she next saw the two-year-old, she was bleeding from the mouth and “barely breathing”.

    In May, the 19-year-old Ford pled guilty to charges stemming from the injuries to Garner’s two-year-old daughter and with introducing a controlled substance into the body of another. He was given three years in prison to be followed by seven years probation. He is currently an inmate in the Cummins Unit of the state prison system.

    

    

WebReadyTM Powered by WireReady® NSI