Police arrested a Phoenix, Arizona couple two days after firefighters responded to the hotel where the family was staying and pronounced one of their one-month-old babies dead.

Court documents show the mother had gone to the store earlier in the day when the father called her to come home because the baby "was choking and unresponsive."

According to the father, he saw his partner "perform CPR" on the baby. A few hours later, the infant stopped breathing again. They called 911. Firefighters responded and pronounced the baby dead. While they were still there, the other one-month-old baby started to have trouble breathing. A 15-month-old, a four-year-old, and a six-year-old were in the room as well.

The other one-month-old baby was brought to the hospital where doctors found the infant had "traumatic head injuries to include necrotic tissues and brain bleeds." The baby was then transferred to a Children's Hospital and the remaining children were taken into the custody of the Department of Child Safety.

Physicians examined the three remaining kids and found all three to "have a lice infestation . . .; extremely soiled diapers; and insects crawling out of their ears." They found the 15-month-old had "multiple skull fractures."

According to court documents, the man admitted to hitting the woman after losing his temper. However, he "denied hitting, harming, or hurting the children." He said he "was too scared to hold the small children." He also said his six-year-old child "would hide under the bed when he yelled," and his four-year-old child "would cling to [his mother] and cry."

But police said the four-year-old told them the father "threw [the baby who died] on the ground."

The mother denied everything, claiming her partner "would not harm his children." The mother had no criminal history, but the father has previous arrests and convictions for domestic violence and vandalism.

The couple admitted to investigators that they failed to get medical attention for their children when they should have. News Staff "Phoenix couple accused of child abuse in baby's death, 2 other children's head injuries" www.azfamily.com (Jan. 13, 2020).