A woman who was abusing a baby has been arrested thanks to the family dog, who gave away his distrust of her when she came to the house.
Benjamin and Hope Jordan were horrified to learn that the woman they trusted to care for their son for five months had been abusing him when she thought no one was watching. But someone was – the dog.
The dog, whose name has not been given, served as baby Finn’s protector when his parents were away. The Jordans, who had recently moved to Charleston, South Carolina, hired 22-year-old Alexis Khan after she came up clean on a background check.
“We felt like Alexis was a good fit at the time,” said Benjamin Jordan.
But before long, they began to see some peculiar behavior from their dog.
“About five months into her being our baby sitter, we started to notice that our dog was very defensive of our son when she would come in the door,” Jordan said. “He was very aggressive towards her and a few times we actually had to physically restrain our dog from going towards her.”
The parents were suspicious, but had nothing substantial to go on. Hope suggested they keep tabs on Khan by putting an iPhone under the couch to record what happened while they were at work.
“It started with cussing,” Jordan said. “Then you hear slap noises and his crying changes from a distress cry to a pain cry. I just wanted to reach through the audio tape, go back in time and just grab him up.
“To know that for five months I had handed my child to a monster, not knowing what was going on in my house for that day…”
A few weeks later, Charleston City Police took Khan into custody. She pleaded guilty to assault and battery. She will serve one to three years in prison, and be placed on a child abuse registry, preventing her from ever working with children again. She will be eligible for parole after completing one year of her sentence.
“That is fantastic news to us. To know that maybe Finn’s ordeal has possibly saved another child’s life in the future,” Jordan said. “Had our dog not alerted us to the trouble, had my wife’s instincts not said we need to make something happen, it could have been Finn that was killed by the babysitter. You never know.”
The Jordans report that Finn is doing well, and seems to show no signs of trauma.
wistv.com – Columbia, South Carolina |
