CAMDEN — By TAMMY FRAZIER
Managing editor
The Camden Police Department has issued a press release stating that two people wanted for attempted murder of a child have turned themselves in and are now in custody.
Antwon Davidson and Janecia Moore turned themselves in Tuesday at the Camden Police Department. An arrest warrant was issued on the pair after CPD received a call from the Ouachita County Medical Center that Davidson’s five-year-old daughter had been taken to the emergency room. The incident report states that the child was accompanied by Davidson’s live-in girlfriend - Moore, and hospital personnel was told the child had fallen down some stairs and was complaining of pain in her neck.
However, the medical staff was reportedly concerned about the girl’s weight, and CPD officers reported noticing that the child was very “bony” and undersized for her age. She was transferred to Arkansas Children’s Hospital in Little Rock for further evaluation and CPD received a preliminary report and the girl was described as being “severely malnourished, emaciated and frail with sunken facial features.”
The girl was reportedly “crying out for food and drink” upon her arrival at the hospital. She told the hospital staff that she was not allowed anything to drink after 6 p.m. because it was feared that she would wet herself. The staff reportedly noticed burns on her upper thighs and circular burn marks and bruising on her body.
The news release states that when first placed in a room at the hospital in Little Rock, the child was allowed to have a sandwich, but she “ate it too slowly so Moore (the father’s girlfriend) took it from her and gave it to the girl’s brother.” The girl told the staff that Pop Tarts that she was given at home were cold, but that her brother’s Pop Tarts would be warmed up, and that if she did not eat fast enough, her father would throw her food in the trash.
The hospital moved the girl to the pediatric intensive care unit for severe malnutrition, dehydraiton and hypernatremia - which is a high level of sodium in the blood, according to www.medical-dictionary.com. The hospital’s report stated that the child’s “electrolytes were remarkably high for sodium.”
“The doctor reports the sodium was so high it was likely to have caused permanent injury or death if the conditions persisted without medical intervention,” according to the hospital’s report, which also states that the girl told the hospital staff:
“They put salt in my rice. They put a big spoonful of salt in my rice and make me eat it.”
The staff stated that the child’s remarks explains the “extraordinarily high sodium and chloride levels” in her body, and is “consistent with salt poisoning - which is a dangerous and potentially fatal mechanism of poisoning.”
The doctor also stated that high levels of sodium would result in an intense thirst and would explain why the child “had gotten in trouble at home for drinking from the toilet.”
CPD states that the report from Children’s Hospital “is consistent with physical abuse and neglect,” and it was determined that “the young child would be at grave risk of serious injury or death in her home environment.”
Davidson and Moore have been charged with criminal attempted first-degree murder, first-degree battery and permitting the abuse of a minor.