SUMMERFIELD, FL– A 36-year-old mother has been taken into custody after investigators determined that she contributed to the death of her young son.
The Marion County Sheriff’s Office reported that fire rescue personnel responded to a home at 13520 SE 42nd Avenue due to an unresponsive baby.
The child’s mother, Tracie Renne Puskac, told detectives that she noticed her son banging his head on the floor around 8:30 p.m., so she moved him to a safe spot and held him down.
Around 10:00 p.m., Puskac says she noticed that the child’s body became “stiff as a board,” but put him to bed instead of calling emergency services because she feared that the Department of Children and Families would get involved and take away her children again.
Puskac says she woke up around 7:00 a.m. and noticed that her son’s lips were blue and his breathing was shallow.
The child was taken to AdventHealth Belleview ER and then transported to the UF Health Shands Hospital for treatment where he later died.
On July 7th, the Medical Examiner’s Office turned in an autopsy that showed the child’s cause of death was due to complications of a skull fracture, subdural hemorrhage, and traumatic brain and spinal cord injury due to abusive head and neck trauma.
Detectives determined that the various stories that Puskac told them regarding the child’s injuries did not add up.
Puskac was arrested at her home on July 10th for second-degree murder.