Michigan City, IN) - A Michigan City woman is now facing potential time in prison in connection with the beating death of her five year old son allegedly at the hands of her live-in boyfriend.

 

Haile Lewis, 23, was charged Friday afternoon in La Porte Superior Court 1 with Level 1 felony neglect of a dependent.  The charge alleges Lewis knew her son was being abused but failed to seek help or remove him from the situation that resulted in his death.

 

Brice Bainum, 32, was previously charged with murder.

 

READ MORE: Michigan City Man Charged with Murder of 5-year-old(

 

After witnessing some of the abuse, Lewis found the boy unresponsive on the floor of his bedroom at Normandy Village Apartments on the morning of March 2nd,  according to court documents.

 

Police said Lewis told investigators while they were eating dinner the previous evening, Bainum felt the boy was being disrespectful and proceeded to use a blanket to bound the boy to his kitchen chair while demanding he apologize, which he did.  Lewis said Bainum then kept pouring cold water over the boy’s head for about one hour, according to police.

 

Court documents show Lewis told police she did not come to the aid of her son, not even when Bainum left the room to fill up the bottle again with water, because he made her sit down.

 

According to court documents, Lewis told police she later found the boy looking scared and crying in the bathroom after he was instructed to take a cold shower with Bainum yelling at her son, who appeared to have been struck “really hard.”

 

She said Bainum explained the child bit him on the arm hard enough to leave a bite mark and responded defiantly when she told him to stop hitting her son, according to court documents.

 

Court documents also revealed that Lewis said the boy was ordered back to his bedroom at one point and the child was complying when he was struck on the back of the head by Bainum.

 

Police said Lewis also told investigators she was later in the bathroom when she heard  a “thump” but she was not sure if the noise came from her son’s bedroom or if Bainum was in the room with the child, according to police.

 

Court documents also revealed a neighbor living above the apartment told police she heard the voice of a “little boy” saying “no, please stop.  I will be a good boy” then silence before an ambulance showed up about one hour later.

 

Police said Lewis told investigators she found the boy unresponsive after going into his bedroom to check on him and went to call 911, but Bainum grabbed the phone out of her hand.  More than one hour passed before he allowed her to call for help, according to court documents.  Police said the boy was airlifted from Franciscan Health to Comer Children’s Hospital in Chicago where he was pronounced dead that evening.

 

According to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office, the boy’s cause of death was listed as multiple injuries such as bleeding on the brain due to assault.

 

Lewis told police Brainum had been abusing her son for about six months and her for roughly two months.  According to police, Lewis admitted there were times she could have sought help for her son but didn’t because she was scared of Bainum, who she accused of abusing her and her son for months.

 

Bainum was being held in the La Porte County Jail on $1 million bond. He could face a 45 to 65 year sentence.  Lewis is looking at the possibility of a 20 to 40 year sentence.