A Utah couple has been charged with attempted murder after severely beating the woman’s 3-year-old daughter, according to authorities in a chilling case of alleged child abuse.
Tyrel Scott Belone, 28, and Amber Lee Leary, 29, have been charged with attempted aggravated murder, aggravated child abuse, and child torture, according to Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill. As of Tuesday, the child, identified as C.W. in court documents, was in critical condition and in a medically induced coma.
According to court documents, on June 28, around 7:15 a.m., officers from the Sandy Police Department responded to a house and discovered Leary standing outside. She led them into the garage, then to the basement, where they discovered the 3-year-old girl lying on her back.
She did “not appear to be conscious or alert,” but when an officer put his ear to her mouth, he could feel her breathing and a pulse on her right wrist. However, she remained unresponsive, with “no movement” in her eyes.
C.W. was said to have bruises all over her body, including “several bruises” just below both eyes and “a greenish-blue color over her whole body.” According to the officers, “it appeared as though she was not getting enough oxygen.” She was airlifted to a local hospital.
Detectives began questioning Leary, the girl’s mother, and Belone, Leary’s boyfriend, about what happened. They discovered that the couple had only moved to Utah in early May, and that she was a certified nursing assistant and he was a nurse.
Belone testified that C.W. had regressed in her potty training over the previous weeks, “taking off her pants and defecating in the corner.” He also claimed she “had been combative, biting and scratching, and took a chunk out” of his nose a few days prior. He had been caring for the child in the early morning hours of late June, when Leary had started a new job, he explained.
According to the complaint, in the hours before police arrived on June 28, the child urinated and defecated in the house, and the adults cleaned it up. Belone picked up the girl and threw her on the mattress just before Leary left for work around 5:30 a.m., but she bounced and “ricocheted,” hitting the wall, according to police.
Belone “further stated that when he threw C.W., her body skimmed the bed, and it was ‘like a rock skipping over water.'”
“[Belone] stated that he grabbed C.W.’s left forearm and leg and threw her face up.” “C.W.’s body was perpendicular to the bed, and she contacted the bed with her back,” the complaint states.
“C.W. spun and struck the wall with the right side of her head and face, which absorbed the majority of the impact. [Belone] stated that he examined C.W. and found that she was breathing normally, her heart rate was consistent, and her lungs sounded normal, but she wasn’t’really responding.'”
As Leary was about to leave, Belone is said to have told her, “They needed to fix this,” and that he “had been telling her for weeks.” She left, so he called his mother, a nurse practitioner, for assistance. He believes she made the call for emergency medical services.
According to police, Belone admitted to “giving her bruises a couple of times,” including on June 27, and striking her “high on the cheekbone” – and that Leary was aware he had hit her.
The complaint continues:
[The detective] asked [Belone] about punching C.W. in the face. [Belone] stated, “I have knocked her a couple times” and confirmed it was with a closed fist. [Belone] said it was in C.W.’s cheekbone and forehead, mostly, and stated that C.W. cried when he punched her in the cheekbone. [Belone] said most of the time, he punched her in the butt and said that one-time [Belone] gave C.W. a backhand in the bathroom, and she fell. [The detective] asked more about the time [Belone] hit C.W. with a closed fist. [Belone] stated that he hit C.W. with a closed fist in response to C.W. attacking him and gouging his nose when he went to clean up after C.W. pooped in a corner. [Belone] punched C.W. in the temple and told her to stop and let him clean up the mess. [Belone] also said that [Leary] has never physically gotten between him and C.W.
Then there was Leary’s account of events.
She said she was on her way to work when she received a call from Belone, who reportedly told her, “You need to come. I believe C.W. should go to the hospital.” According to the complaint, he provided no additional information beyond, “Just come home.”
Leary did so and, upon discovering C.W. in critical condition, referred to her daughter as “dead with a heartbeat.” Leary then discussed how Belone’s mother became involved.
The mother, known as Ginger, reportedly requested to see the baby on FaceTime. Leary claimed Belone initially refused, but he FaceTimed her before switching to a regular call. When Ginger noticed the baby was unresponsive, she said, “You have to take her to the hospital,” adding, “If you don’t take her, you will both go to jail.”
Leary claimed that her partner refused to let her call 911, saying things like, “If you call, I’ll go to jail, you don’t have any money, and you have no friends.”
When asked what would happen if her daughter died, Belone allegedly said, “She’ll be fine.” Leary then stated that she needed to smoke, went outside, called 911, and texted Ginger their address.
According to Leary, Belone was “pleasant and nice” prior to June, but C.W.’s potty training was frustrating him. Text messages included in the complaint reveal startling details about his apparent state of mind in the days preceding C.W.’s critical injury.
He allegedly texted Leary, “I am going to murder her,” on June 22 at 7:25 a.m. “I am going to crack her skull,” he said three hours later, according to the complaint.
“I’m done with her; we can’t live together with her like this, and hearing her voice makes me want to kill her,” another message reportedly said. When Leary returned home that night, C.W. had “her eyes bruised and swollen shut, and a big bruise on the right side of her head.”
In other messages reviewed by detectives, Belone allegedly threatened to leave Leary, saying, “These issues have been ongoing and you refuse to acknowledge them, but now they’ve come to a breaking point.”
According to police, he also stated that “she is pissing on the floor.” No school will accept her like this. She’s acting completely feral, and I’m going to break her nose.”
A pediatrician who examined the baby in the hospital concluded that C.W. “is at high risk of further injury or death if returned to the hands of the caregiver who inflicted these injuries.” C.W.’s current situation is confidential.”
Belone is charged with the “extreme acts of violence,” but Leary’s arrest warrant states that she “made the choice to watch the abuse happen, made the choice not to seek medical care when needed, and made the choice not to seek help from professionals or law enforcement despite the victim’s extreme visible injuries.”
C.W. was still in the intensive care unit of the nearby children’s hospital as of Tuesday.
