A Vancouver man accused of killing his infant son by throwing him several feet pleaded not guilty Thursday in Clark County Superior Court to a first-degree murder charge.
David M. Redmond, 24, said he had just returned to the family’s Maplewood neighborhood home from work on Oct. 15 when he threw 1-month-old Everett Redmond because the infant was fussy, according to a court affidavit by Vancouver police Detective Jason Hafer.
Redmond confessed that he lifted the infant over his head and threw him from a bed onto a changing table, a distance of 7 to 9 feet, Deputy Prosecutor Patrick Robinson has said. The baby weighed about 6 pounds, Robinson said.
“I threw him pretty hard; I was pretty annoyed,” Redmond said, according to the affidavit.
His wife, Ashley Redmond, may have been at the gym at the time.
During his arraignment hearing Thursday, David Redmond no longer was wearing a “suicide smock,” which he wore at his initial court appearance Monday. The garment is made of tear-resistant fabric to make it more difficult for inmates to fashion it into a noose. Instead, he was attired in a standard orange uniform.
Judge David Gregerson scheduled Redmond’s trial for March 9. Redmond’s attorney, Gregg Schile, also requested a bail review hearing for Tuesday.
Redmond remained in the Clark County Jail on Thursday in lieu of $750,000 bail.
After allegedly throwing the baby, Redmond didn’t go to work so that he could sit up with the infant, Hafer wrote.
“I wanted to make sure that if something was wrong, I was first to respond ’cause I felt guilty about losing my temper,” Redmond said, according to the affidavit.
When the infant became unresponsive later that night, Redmond woke up his wife and told her that Everett Redmond wasn’t breathing well, Hafer wrote.
Ashley Redmond started CPR on the baby, while David Redmond called 911.
Everett Redmond was taken to PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center, then transferred to Randall Children’s Hospital at Legacy Emanuel Medical Center in Portland. He was kept alive with machines for a period of time before he died, Robinson said.
David Redmond initially claimed that the baby’s injuries came from him rolling over onto the baby while they were napping together or from the baby getting wedged between a couch and a chair, but he later recanted those stories, Hafer wrote.
Dan Leonhardt, a doctor at the children’s hospital, said that the baby had a large skull fracture with soft tissue swelling. He had bleeding inside his skull and hemorrhaging in his eyes that extended all the way out to the periphery, according to the affidavit. The doctor said the injuries were caused by blunt-force trauma and could not have resulted from the father and child napping together, Hafer wrote.
David Redmond allegedly confessed that he had abused his son at other times during the infant’s brief life. He said he forced the baby’s mouth shut at the jaw to try to stop him from crying, squeezed him, threw him onto the bed and threw him against a couch, causing the baby to fall onto the floor, according to court documents. He also spanked the baby when the infant was 1 week old, court documents say.
David Redmond was convicted of criminal mischief in Oregon five years ago but has no other criminal history, Robinson said. He works as a laborer at a cabinet shop, according to court documents.
