A 19-month-old girl is in stable condition with life-threatening injuries after being abandoned in a recycling bin.

The near-tragedy occurred about 6:30 a.m. on New Year’s Day in the 500-block of Pritchard Avenue. Police say a 17-year-old suspect, along with others, had been partying at a nearby home on Flora Avenue when an altercation led to one of the party-goers, J.D. Keno, being chased out onto the street.

Police say it was at this time the suspect took the toddler, who wasn’t adequately dressed for the weather, and ran from the home. Temperatures around that time felt about -30 C with the wind chill.

Police said the suspect tripped and fell, landing on the toddler and causing several injuries. He allegedly left the tot in a recycling bin and went back to the party, where he got into a physical fight with a 13-year-old girl. Police say the suspect, the child and the 13-year-old are related, but wouldn’t specify how.

“You try to comprehend what drives a person to do something like this,” said police spokesman Const. Eric Hofley. “Brutal decision followed by brutal decision followed by a near-fatal decision. I’m speechless.”

Keno, 22, said he’d been drinking tequila and Jack Daniels earlier in the evening and was on his way home when the friend of a cousin invited him to the party on Flora Avenue. He admitted he was drunk and belligerent at the party, and said he tried to leave the house on Flora with some beer he’d brought. He eventually left without it, but said four people followed him, threw him to the ground in an empty lot and started “kicking me repeatedly in the face.”

Keno went to his house on Pritchard Avenue, armed himself with a kitchen knife, and went outside “in a drunken rage” in an attempt “to scare them.” He quickly gave up the chase, but heard a baby crying as he was returning to his backyard.

“Honestly, I thought it was from the neighbour’s a couple houses down because they have kids, but as I got close I could hear the sounds were coming from a recycling bin,” Keno, who lives with his brother and sister-in-law, said. “As I opened it up, that baby stopped crying and she was looking up at me. My heart dropped. I grabbed her and I held her in my arms and I told them to call the cops.”

Keno said he could tell in the backlane that the baby had bruising on her face, but both he and his sister-in-law, 22-year-old Autumn Wozny, said they were shocked by the extent of the injuries sustained by the child, who was wearing only tights and a diaper.

“She was beaten up so badly that her left eye couldn’t open. She had goose eggs upon goose eggs of bruises on her face and it was all on her left side,” Wozny recalled, struggling to get the words out. “She had cuts on her head, she had bruises on her arms, she had red marks all over her chest. She had a fat lip. She had blood in her mouth. Her nose was swollen. She was just physically beaten up.”

The 17-year-old has been charged with criminal negligence causing bodily harm, abandoning a child, assault, and possessing or consuming liquor by a minor. The suspect was detained in custody, said police.

Keno said he never saw a baby at the party, but was told there was a child sleeping in another room. Keno, who has four nephews, later heard reports that the accused was the baby’s uncle.

“I don’t see how someone could do that to their own family,” he said.

Keno said not long after the police arrived, the “same people who beat me up came into my house and they started accusing me of stealing the baby.”

“I forgive those people for fighting me, for beating me up. These things happen. But I don’t think I could ever forgive them for leaving that baby in the condition it was.”



