Dad arrested in death of 2-year-old son; son had previous brain damage from Dad shaking him at 2-months (Las Vegas, Nevada)

Dad MARIO GENE-JEROME HILL has been arrested on second-degree homicide charges in the death of his 2-year-old son in 2007. (Why it has taken this long is not really explained.)

Why was this Dad even allowed to be around this son? The boy had previous brain damage from Dad shaking him at 2 months of age back in 2005. PLUS, Dad had another child abuse conviction involving another son in 2007. What is it with these abusive guys being allowed to destroy the lives of children again and again?

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/sep/17/man-arrested-2007-child-abuse-murder-case/

Father arrested for child abuse, second-degree homicide
2-year-old boy had been shaken earlier
By Mary Manning (contact)

Published Thursday, Sept. 17, 2009 1:24 p.m.

Updated 2 hours, 51 minutes ago

When 2-year-old Nithaniel Hill was brought in by his father for a scan to check a shunt placed in his head after a shaken baby incident, medical staff noted how agitated Mario Gene-Jerome Hill appeared with his son.

After administering drugs to the boy, staff placed him on the lap of his father, who rocked Nithaniel to sleep, according to the medical report. But the tot kept waking up and crying that afternoon of Oct. 22, 2007. A nurse described the father as "angry."

Less than 24 hours later, Nithaniel Hill was dead in Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center's pediatric intensive care unit.

Metro Police arrested 31-year-old Mario Hill on Tuesday, charging him with felony murder in the second degree, child abuse with substantial bodily harm and a probation violation.

Hill had been convicted in 2005 for felony child abuse. When Nithaniel was 2 months old, he had had brain damage from being shaken twice. Mario Hill told police that he had jostled the infant twice in June 2005. The shunt was inserted to drain fluids from Nithaniel's brain.

The Hill family had been in contact with Child Protective Services over the years and Mario Hill had been convicted in 2007 of child abuse in the case of another son, the police report says.

In 2006 police found one of the Hill's children wandering on a Las Vegas street. Nithaniel had developmental delays, "a little bit of a gait when he walked" and "his little head had a little deformity," according to the arrest report.

Mario Hill said that Nithaniel had eaten a ham and cheese sandwich, crackers and drank a glass of juice after arriving home the day of the brain scan. He said that the tot had fallen into a coffee table and hit his chin, but got up and kept on playing until he was put to bed about 8:30 or 9 p.m. Oct. 22.

When Nithaniel's mother arrived home later that same night, she told police that the boy was crying in a strange way. "I can't even explain it," she told police. Mario Hill had gone to work.

The boy went limp and the mother called Mario, who dialed 911 and an ambulance took the boy to Sunrise Hospital.

A Lodi, Calif., brain specialist and pathologist, Dr. Bennet Omalu, examined Nithaniel's brain and found damages from both the shaking he had received as a baby and evidence of a "very hard impact" described as a "non-accidental injury." When questioned by law enforcement, Omalu said the brain injury might contribute to death from a more recent blow to the head. The later injury equaled the force from a "severe vehicle collision," Omalu said.

The doctor also said that once a brain is injured, it doesn't recover.

In January 2009 Child Protective Services began proceedings to remove another child from the Hill home and terminate parental rights, the arrest report said.