Burlington, Vermont - July 27, 2009
Valerie Beale, 23, smiled at her baby's father as she was brought into the courtroom to be charged with attempting to murder their 13-month-old girl.
The smile might have been unexpected since it was the baby's father, Alan Charbonneau, who provided the statements to police that got Beale arrested.
Police say the incident happened Sunday evening in the couple's Burlington apartment when their baby daughter wouldn't stop crying and Beale became enraged.
"At some point in time she picked up a knife, she went to shut the baby up in her words, and to carve a smile on the baby's face because the baby was crying," Chittenden County Prosecutor T.J. Donovan said.
Police say Charbonneau stepped in, blocked the attack with his body and ended up with deep scratches and a cut thumb, but the baby was not injured.
Police say Beale was still carrying the knife when they arrested her two blocks away.
She told police she never threatened the child with the knife. She denied charges of attempted first-degree murder and attempted aggravated assault.
"We'll prosecute this case to the fullest extent of the law because I don't think anybody in their wildest imagination can think something like this up," Donovan said. "Extremely disturbing."
"One child is one child way too many," said Linda Johnson of Prevent Child Abuse Vermont.
Johnson says a new state report shows a dramatic increase in the number of children injured or killed by parents because the children were crying. The report shows 737 kids were abused last year-- about the same as the prior year. But the number of babies injured by being shaken because they were crying increased to 14.
"This is very bad news," Johnson said. "In the past we've had maybe three or five a year, but certainly in a two-year period we have never seen 14. And four of the 14 died within a couple of days of being shaken."
Johnson says it's important for parents to know how to cope by putting the child down and walking out of the room to calm down and asking someone else to help with the child.
Court records show Valerie Beale has six prior convictions since 2003; four of them for burglary and theft. Burlington police reports show she was a suspect in at least 20 other thefts. Records show she also has a mental health history. She received a courthouse screening Monday and was determined to be mentally competent to be charged.
For now, Beale is being held without bail as a public threat pending a bail review hearing yet to be scheduled.
The little girl is in the father's custody, but under supervision of the state Department of Children and Families.
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