September 03, 2009 4:37 PM
The grandmother of an infant whose toes were bitten off by a pit bull Monday is defending the child’s parents who were charged with child abuse.
She says it could have happened to anyone.
“My daughter loved her children and would do any thing for them,” Belinda Baker said of Robbie Lynn Jenkins, 20, who along with the child’s father, Tremayne Jerel Spillman, 23, remain in the Onslow County Jail charged with negligent child abuse resulting in serious physical injury and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
Jenkins bond was set at $50,000 and Spillman’s bond is $57,500, because he was also served with outstanding 2006 warrants for attempted breaking and entering.
The child, 4-month-old Tremayne Jerel Spillman Jr., remains in stable condition at Pitt Memorial Hospital. Baker is upset that she has not been allowed to visit him.
“I haven’t been charged with anything,” she said. “I have not been arrested. Why can’t I see my grandchild?”
The 12-week-old pit bull puppy had to be euthanized so a rabies test, which requires a brain sample, could be performed. The test came back negative, Onslow County Animal Control officials said Wednesday.
Baker said the puppy is at the heart of her daughter’s legal troubles because the Onslow County Sheriff’s Department only arrested her because of whom the puppy belonged to.
Jenkins and Spillman were watching the dog for a neighbor, Aaron Watkins, 36, who was in the Onslow County Jail under a $7,500 bond at the time after being charged with possession of a firearm by a felon, discharging a firearm and possession of marijuana.
Baker said Jenkins and Spillman barely knew Watkins, but Spillman can clearly be heard telling a dispatcher “it’s my buddy’s puppy” while on the phone to 911 Monday morning, according to the emergency recording obtained by The Daily News.
Baker said authorities do not like Watkins so they charged Spillman and her daughter.
She said her daughter was struggling to provide for her three children but was a good parent.
“She did everything she could for them,” she said. “When they lived in Pennsylvania, my daughter would carry her kids on her back in the snow to get them to doctor’s appointments.”
Baker said her daughter is a cancer survivor who is taking Xanex and sleep-aid medications. Neighbors in the Murrill Hill Road mobile home park told reporters earlier in the week that Jenkins had locked the puppy in the bathroom before going to sleep and one of her two other children must have let it out during the night. The infant was on a foldout couch in the living room. The dog nibbled on the child’s left foot until all five toes were gone.
During the hectic Monday morning 911 call, Spillman interrupted a dispatcher trying to explain how to stop the child’s bleeding to tell her “ma’am, we’re not bad parents.”
“I’m about to kill the dog,” Spillman says at one point during the call with the baby crying in the background. The dispatcher discourages him from hurting the animal.
Baker said her daughter was on heavy medication and she had a reason not to wake up when the infant cried out, but she was unsure why Spillman did not respond to the child’s cries.
Authorities sent Spillman and Jenkins to Onslow Memorial Hospital to have blood samples drawn. Blood tests are often used by law enforcement to determine what types of drugs a person has been taking.
Search warrants for the couple’s Murrill Hill Road home remain sealed.
Jenkins and Spillman went from the hospital to the Sheriff’s Department on Monday, Baker said. They were not on the run like the authorities tried to make it sound, she said.
The entire situation has been made into a spectacle by the media, Baker said, adding that her family was hurt by comments made by readers on local news sites.
For now, Jenkins and Spillman’s other two children are being cared for by one of Jenkins’ sisters.
Spillman and Jenkins are scheduled for a preliminary court hearing Sept. 22.
