Abilene mother accused of injuring infant sentenced to 20 years

ABILENE, Texas (KTAB/KRBC) – An Abilene mother accused of shaking an infant then ‘slamming’ her onto a changing table, causing seizures and other injuries, has been sentenced to serve 20 years in prison.

Clarissa Stewart pleaded guilty to Injury to a Child charge and received her 20-year prison sentence this week in connection to an incident that happened in November 2023.

Court documents state Child Protective Services alerted police that a 2-month-old infant had been flown to Cook Children’s Medical Center in Ft. Worth from Abilene the day before for what appeared to be “non-accidental” trauma. 

CPS told investigators that the infant was initially brought to the hospital in Abilene for “twitching and not acting right”, but medical officials were soon able to determine the child had a subdermal hemorrhage to her brain, bruises to her torso, and a bruise to her right eye, according to the documents, which state the parents were not able to describe any falls or accidents and stated the could not explain how the child was injured. 

When detectives later interviewed Stewart, the documents state she waived her Miranda rights and admitted to shaking the baby multiple times and also ‘slamming’ her onto a changing table. 

The documents state she claimed she did this because the baby had been crying from 7 a.m. to 1-2 p.m., and this caused her to lose control.

After the incident, the documents reveal the infant began having seizures around 2 p.m. and those seizures continued through 8 p.m., with no medical intervention for the entire 6 hours. 

A subsequent search of Stewart’s cellphone reveled that after the child was slammed on the changing table and the seizures began, she was searching the internet for things like, “what are symptoms of shaken baby syndrome”, “why is baby sleeping more than usual” and “how long for shaken baby symptoms to appear”, according to the documents. 

Investigators also went through her text messages and the documents state they found she had been texting her husband after the infant was born saying things like, “I want nothing to do with [the baby] when you’re off. I can’t stand her anymore the second she cries, it throws me into a rage I didn’t know I could have. . .”, “It’s getting harder and harder to love her. . .”, and “I honestly don’t want to pump anymore because of her I don’t want that connection anymore.”

Doctors state the infant is having brain surgery and may have to be on a feeding tube due to the injuries she sustained.