Manjula Bandarupalli is out on bail.
AB Wire
An Indian American babysitter from Round Rock, Texas, Manjula Bandarupalli, 45, has been accused of shaking a 1-year-old boy so hard that he had to have part of his skull removed to relieve brain pressure, according to police.
Bandarupalli was charged Feb. 10 with serious bodily injury to a child, according to an arrest affidavit released on Feb. 22, reported the Austin American-Statesman.
Bandarupalli initially told a sheriff’s detective the boy was playing in the living room by the stairs with other children when he fell down some stairs Feb. 3 at her house at 8303 Campeche Bay Place, the affidavit said.
It said she didn’t see the toddler fall but she heard a noise around 11:30 a.m. when she left the stairs to get lunch for the children in the kitchen. She said she looked around the corner and saw the boy laying flat on his back, parallel to the first step, but that he was not crying, the affidavit said.
The report said she picked up the boy who was stiff but instead of calling 911 called his parents to pick him up. Bandarupalli said she usually didn’t let children play on the stairs but had not used a gate to close off the stairs that day, the document said.
It said she was the only adult in the house when the incident occurred. The detective then met with the parents of the boy at Dell Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas, where staff told him that the boy had severe bilateral brain bleed with retinal hemorrhages in both eyes, the affidavit said.
“It was explained that these injuries are not consistent with a fall and would have been caused by a violent shake of the head,” according to the affidavit.
It said the detective interviewed Bandarupalli again Feb. 5 and that she stuck to her account of the boy falling on the stairs.
After the detective explained to Bandarupalli that the boy’s injuries would have come from a violent shake, Bandarupalli then said she had “played rough” with the baby and shaken him too hard, the affidavit said. It said Bandarupalli also said she had shaken the baby every time she had babysat him but “had shaken the victim harder this time.”
She said she was the person who caused the baby’s injuries, the affidavit said. It also said Bandarupalli said she and her husband were planning to return to India in April or May for at least six months to attempt to find a husband for their 22-year-old daughter.
Bandarupalli was released from the Williamson County Jail on Feb. 11 after posting bail set at $75,000.
The investigative website KXAN reported according to Child Care Licensing, Bandarupalli cared for kids inside her house without registering – making it an illegal operation.
According to the arrest affidavit, the baby’s father dropped him off at Bandarupalli’s home in Round Rock on Feb. 3.
While the babysitter told police the child’s injuries were related to the fall, doctors determined the injuries would have been caused “by a violent shake,” according to the affidavit. Doctors say the injury was so severe that emergency surgery was needed to remove part of the child’s skull to relieve pressure on his brain, continued in the court document.
KXAN spoke with Bandarupalli at her home, but she did not want to comment on the charges.
Texas has been cracking down on daycares operating illegally. In 2014, the state hired more investigators to look into new cases, after it opened more than 1,100 investigations into illegal child daycares, in 2013. The next year, that number jumped to more than 3,200. And in 2015, the state conducted more than 4,100 investigations.