HOT SPRINGS -- A Hot Springs man was arrested Tuesday morning on a capital murder charge in the Friday night death of his 5-month-old son.
Cody Timothy Webb, 35, who lists a Bellaire Drive address, was charged with capital murder, which is punishable by the death penalty or life in prison without parole. Webb surrendered Tuesday at the Garland County jail and was booked into the lockup shortly after 11:30 a.m., where he remained held without bail Wednesday afternoon.
According to reports, the incident leading to the child's death occurred Friday evening and the child died shortly after 11:30 p.m. at Arkansas Children's Hospital in Little Rock. An autopsy conducted at the Arkansas State Crime Laboratory indicated that the boy's death was a homicide.
Webb's attorney, Q. Byrum Hurst of Hot Springs, said in a written statement provided Tuesday morning to The Sentinel-Record that Webb was grieving the loss of his infant son and is devastated by the tragedy. The statement said Webb "had nothing to do with the cause of the infant's death and in fact used all his knowledge, resources and efforts to sustain his infant son's life."
Webb was employed as a paramedic with LifeNet at the time of the incident, according to reports
According to the probable cause affidavit obtained Tuesday, Hot Springs police were sent at 6:40 p.m. Friday to a residence for an ambulance assist, and upon arrival observed a 5-month-old child "unresponsive on the floor" being treated by LifeNet personnel.
Webb was at the scene and said he had just finished feeding his child and had him wrapped in a "sleep sack" rocking him when he "suddenly became stiff," the affidavit says. He said he ripped open the sleep sack, called 911 and started CPR.
The child was transported to National Park Medical Center where the medical staff advised that he had a heartbeat and had started to breathe on his own, the affidavit says. It notes that there were "no visible signs of trauma" and the child was transported to Children's Hospital for further treatment.
Around 7:30 a.m. Saturday, detective Mark Fallis with the Hot Springs Police Department spoke to a Children's Hospital official and was informed that the child died at 11:39 p.m. Friday, the affidavit says. Fallis was told that the child had "multiple injuries that consisted of bilateral subdural hemorrhages in the brain with swelling on both the left and right side" with the swelling on the right "being worse," the affidavit says.
The child also had "new rib fractures in ribs 2-8 on the left side and retinal hemorrhages," the document says.
Dr. Rachel Clingenpeel said the child had extensive multilayer retinal hemorrhages with bilateral macular folds, which are "traumatic disruptions of the retinal layers," and are "caused specifically by trauma and not any medical disease," the document says.
The retinal hemorrhages have a high diagnostic specificity for "abusive head trauma," the affidavit said, and "would have been caused by violent rotational acceleration-deceleration of the head."
She also said, according to the affidavit, that "unless there was a plausible history of a violent accidental trauma such as a car accident or severe crush, these findings are specific for abusive head trauma." The trauma that produced the hemorrhages of this severity "would have caused obvious head injury immediately or in short order after the inciting trauma," the document says.
Around 1 p.m. Saturday, Fallis interviewed Webb who reportedly said he had picked the child up from day care around 4:40 p.m. Friday, went to his mother's, and then went home and "everything seemed normal." He said he, his 2-year-old and the infant were home by themselves, and the infant was "normal, happy go lucky,"
He said the child was watching television and then "became fussy" so he tried to feed him around 6 p.m. The child then started "crying loudly" and Webb stated that he "became aggravated," the affidavit says. He said the child was crying and his other child was "needing things and it was frustrating," the document says.
Webb said he "may have picked the child up quickly 2-3 times, pulled him closely into his body much harder than what he thought 3 or 4 times, and forcefully rocked him for approximately 10 minutes."
Webb said as he was rocking the child the baby's head was over his arm "in a manner that could have caused his head to move back and forth," the document says. Toward the end of the interview, Webb stated, "I did that ... " and paused and then said, "because I was getting frustrated and annoyed with a baby crying, so insane."
The affidavit notes that Dr. Charles P. Kokes, a medical examiner at the state Crime Lab, performed an autopsy on the child Monday and said the manner of death was a homicide. A warrant was later issued for Webb's arrest.
The case was filed directly to Garland County Circuit Court, and a gag order has been issued limiting pretrial publicity in the case.