Red Wing Man Charged with Fatally Shaking Two Year Old Girl
Red Wing, MN (KROC AM News) - A Red Wing man has been charged with killing his girlfriend’s young daughter while she was at work.
A criminal complaint was filed Monday against 21-year-old Adam Travis, charging him with 1st and 2nd-degree manslaughter and two other counts.
Red Wing police were called to the home where he had been living with his girlfriend and her four children last Wednesday evening. When they arrived, they found the girl being treated by paramedics. The complaint says the officers found Travis “visibly upset and screaming uncontrollably.”
Travis told the officers the 2-year-old girl had choked while eating chicken nuggets and began vomiting. A friend who was there told officers he saw the girl on her back on the floor, no longer breathing and Travis was performing CPR. The girl was taken to St. Marys where it was determined she was brain dead. She was removed from life support and died Thursday.
An autopsy found the girl had suffered a severe brain injury that was “consistent with the child being shaken, pushed or struck against or struck with a hard surface.”
An investigator interviewed Travis and he initially repeated the girl had choked. But when he was told about the autopsy results, he admitted shaking her, saying “I didn’t try to kill her.”
His conditional bail has been set at $200,000.