MARION COUNTY, Fla. – A 36-year-old woman was arrested Monday on a charge of second-degree murder in connection with the death of her 17-month-old son, the Marion County Sheriff’s Office said.
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Deputies said they were called to a home on Southeast 42nd Avenue in the Summerfield neighborhood on April 27 after Jermiyah Puskac was unresponsive.
The baby was taken to AdventHealth Belleview’s emergency room before being transferred to UF Health Shands Hospital.
Detectives said Tracie Renee Puskac, the boy’s mother, told them Jermiyah had been hitting his head on the ground around 8:30 p.m. on April 26, so she moved him to safety and he held him.
They said she told them at 10 p.m., he got “stiff as a board,” and she put him to bed.
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Puskac said when he woke up around 7 a.m. on April 27, the boy’s lips were blue and his breathing was shallow, so he asked his mother to call 911.
“Over the course of several interviews with Puskac, his versions of the night’s events continued to change, giving detectives different accounts of how Jermiyah struck his head,” the Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.
When detectives asked Puskac why he didn’t call 911 when the boy “became rigid” the night before, they said he told them he didn’t want the Florida Department of Children and Families to take him away again their children.
Officials said the agency has an open case involving Puskac, who had previously removed her children from her home.
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Jermiyah died from her injuries on April 29.
On Friday, the 8th Circuit Medical Examiner’s Office released the results of an autopsy, concluding that she died of complications from a skull fracture, a subdural hemorrhage and a traumatic brain and spinal cord injury at due to abusive head and neck trauma.
Detectives said they determined Jermiyah’s injuries were too severe to have been caused by any of the scenarios Puskac claimed happened.
An arrest warrant was issued and she was taken into custody Monday at her home.
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Puskac was booked into the Marion County Jail, where she is being held without bond.
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