20-year-old Tonya Plunkett is charged with felony child abuse after admitting to striking her infant child with a switch. Medics responded to her home when she reported she was experiencing fatigue after her pregnancy, and responding medics observed numerous injuries across the male infant’s body. She told medics she “don’t whoop him hard.” She is free on a $7,500 bond.
Nashville police say 41-year-old Steffany Rose Hamner was at several bars on Broadway in downtown Nashville Saturday with her 13-year-old daughter. As they were walking at 2nd & Broadway, they were “playing” by grabbing each other’s hair. Steffany fell down during the tussle, and when she stood up, she told her daughter, “I’m gonna beat you!” She then removed her boot and began to strike the victim several times, leaving visible injuries on the juvenile. After the assault, Steffany abandoned her daughter in the Entertainment District without a phone or any supervision and without the address of their AirBNB. Medics transported the child to the hospital, and Hamner was located and jailed on charges of domestic assault and child neglect.
30-year-old Amany Megali told detectives during an interview that she bit the arm of her six-year-old son, breaking the skin and leaving a substantial injury, because he was “refusing to listen to her commands.” The Department of Children’s Services and Metro Nashville Police became involved when the child’s father took his son to Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital after he complained of arm pain and stated his mother bit him.
43-year-old Ricardo Chavez Martinez was jailed this week on an outstanding warrant from July charging him with the felony aggravated assault & strangulation of his 15-year-old son. Ricardo assumed his son was on drugs, which the child denied. Later, when the child was asleep, Ricardo entered his bedroom and pressed the child’s face into a pillow while gripping his neck, causing the child to lose consciousness and leaving him with injuries from his fingernails digging into his neck. The child’s mother and two younger brothers witnessed the entire assault.
A fifteen-year-old girl says her father, 57-year-old Floyd Thomas Jr., brutally beat her with a belt on September 7th. She told police she had taken a walk around her Antioch neighborhood with her sister, which she does every today, but on this day, her father felt the walk took too long. When she returned home, she says he took a belt and began to beat her with it, hitting her over and over again, and when she went to her bedroom, he followed her and continued to beat her as she screamed. She was able to escape and run to a nearby home, where police and first responders were called. Officers documented injuries “from her neck to her ankles,” including large welts to her upper back, visible welts, and redness covering her arms and legs. She also had a mark on her face. Police found the father at his home, and he claims he only spanked her on the bed, but she moved around; he explained she recently had to move to a new school due to behavioral issues. Thomas was charged with child abuse and transported to booking.
Police say 54-year-old Majid Hussain Alkanani is charged with the violent assault of his teenage daughter, which sent her to the hospital, and the assault of her boyfriend after approaching him in a parking lot and then sending death threats to the teen. Details inside…
Metro Nashville Police say that during an interview with 23-year-old Genesis Gillenwaters, she confessed to knowing that her six-year-old son had been raped by a family member for approximately three weeks before the child made a disclosure about it to authorities. She stated she was “handing it through the family” and was getting both the child and the offender counseling instead of getting the police involved. She also stated she was aware that the offender still had access to and had been around the child even after she knew about the rape. She is charged with child abuse for allowing the child to continue to be around the perpetrator after the rape, and with failure to report child abuse.
Maleigha Webb-Boyd was jailed overnight on an outstanding warrant from last year, charging her with felony aggravated child abuse. Metro Nashville Police say a home surveillance system shows 35-year-old Maleigha Webb-Boyd telling a young child to come to her and pull his pants down, and when he doesn’t she replies “if I have to chase you down “I’m going to hit you wherever!” She then proceeds to strike the child approximately ten times before he runs away, at which time she follows him and strikes him ten more times before telling him he has “another one coming.”
35-year-old Crystal Maxim-Jones was jailed this week, charged with child abuse. Metro Nashville Police responded to Bishopsgate Road in Antioch, where witnesses reported Maxim-Jones and her 15-year-old daughter were having an argument over “food items”. She reportedly struck the child 8-10 times with a closed fist, impacting her head and face. Officers documented cuts on the child’s face and forehead.
56-year-old Jerome Nnanwude is charged with child abuse of his 16-year-old son, after finding him in possession of an unknown cell phone and durag as be picked him up from school. When the two arrived home, Jerome grabbed electric hair clippers and attempted to restrain his son and cut off all of his hair. The child resisted and tried to escape the room. His father, Jerome, then struck him on his hands repeatedly with the electric clipper’s teeth, repeatedly cutting the child’s hands. The child emailed his school that evening, stating he was afraid of his father and he had just been assaulted and disclosed about the cuts and bruises on his body. The following day, police documented the victim’s injuries and learned that the child’s mother, Helen Nnanwude, witnessed the assault, and eventually made her husband stop the assault due to the child’s injuries.
