Authorities investigate child’s death

Thursday, July 14, 2005 | 9:37 a.m.

A 2-year-old boy is dead and his twin was in critical but stable condition at University Medical Center Wednesday, and authorities are investigating whether child abuse is to blame.

If it is, the boy would be the sixth child to die of suspected abuse in the Las Vegas Valley this year, authorities said.

The toddler was brought to University Medical Center about 8 p.m. Tuesday with head injuries and died a short time later, police said.

Metro detectives said the twin boys and two other children, 1 and 6 years old, were left at their Las Vegas apartment in the 800 block of Martin Luther King Boulevard with their mother's boyfriend.

The boyfriend's roommate told police that he rushed the child to University Medical Center at the boyfriend's request.

Police said an officer investigated the incident at the hospital and then went to the apartment, finding the other three children, including the twin boy who was also injured. No one else was home.

The two children who had no injuries are in the custody of social workers, police said.

The coroner's office will determine the cause of death of the boy. His name was not available this morning.

Police would not release the name of the mother's boyfriend because he has not been arrested.

A 2-month-old Las Vegas boy died last week of injuries consistent with shaken baby syndrome, authorities reported Monday.

Carl Ronald Wyatt became the second child in just over a week to die in the Las Vegas Valley from such injuries.

The infant died July 6 at Sunrise Hospital subdural hematoma, or bleeding of the brain, an injury consistent with shaken baby syndrome.

On June 28, Caleob Hudson, 6 weeks old, died allegedly at the hands of 17-year-old Jasmine Hardy, his aunt.