According to a court document Joseph Swidorsky, 30, of Pittsburgh was in the process of giving his infant daughter identified in the court document as Braelyn Swidorsky a bath during the morning of June 15.
Local emergency crews and police responded to the Swidorsky home at 11:19 a.m. and found the baby to be unresponsive. A paramedic took the baby from a police officer as he was coming down the stairs attempting to preform CPR and rushed the baby to Allegheny General Hospital where doctors tried to save her life.
She was pronounced dead on June 18 at 7:20 p.m.
An Allegheny County medical examiner concluded the baby died “as a result of blunt force trauma to the head,” police allege in the document. The baby’s injuries included a fractured skull as well as a subdural hematoma, the document says.
Detectives with the Allegheny County police asked Swidorsky why the baby still had a diaper on her if he was in the process of giving her a bath? He responded “he placed a diaper on the child before he began CPR on her.”
Swidorsky said “that he was bathing his daughter and she was crying so hard she stopped breathing.”
After hearing the infant crying Cain went upstairs to check on her and told ABC affiliate WTAE “I came in the room and she was blue. I’ve never seen nothing like that, never in my life. She was taking a seizure.”
A doctor who treated Braelyn told investigators “The injuries would be inflicted by another and not by anything that Braelyn could or would do to herself accidentally.”
There were two other people at the house on that morning — Ashley Cain, the baby’s mother, and her two-year-old daughter, both who were in a separate part of the house.
Swidorsky, police allege, had been asked by Cain to take Braelyn upstairs and give her a bath. During one interview with police Swidorsky said “Maybe I put her down too hard when I did CPR or maybe the medics did something to her when they arrived as she was fine before they arrived.”
According to an unnamed witness Swidorsky told him or her “four different versions of what may have happened to Braelyn,” which included she may have fallen a week prior; she was injured during CPR; and her older sister may have injured her.
Two days after Braelyn’s death Cain alleged in a court filing that Swidorsky made threats to kill her and sent her a text saying “If you don’t love me I will come over and kill you.”
Cain also alleged in the filing that Swidorsky placed a “tracker” on her cell phone and made additional threats to kill me and my kids.”
A judge ordered that Swidorsky is prohibited from having any contact with Cain or her children. It is unclear from the filing whether the two are married or simply cohabitation because they have children together.
Because of the homicide charge Swidorsky is not eligible for bail, and remains in the Allegheny County Jail and faces charges of homicide and child endangerment. A preliminary hearing in the case is scheduled for October 16.
