A woman in Virginia has been arrested and charged for attempting to drown her 7-month old son in the freezing waters of the Appomattox River in January. Leslei Kuykendall, 38, is currently detained in the Riverside Regional Jail in Prince George on charges of attempted murder.
According to Hopewell Police Department, officers responded to a call around 10:30am on January 11, about a woman who had waded into the chilly river near the 500 block of Riverside Avenue.
Witness accounts stated they saw a woman holding a child and walking towards the river. The woman waded into waist-deep water and dropped the child then proceeded to walk further into the deeper end of the river.
The Hopewell Police Department and the Hopewell Fire Department responded to the scene and were able to retrieve and resuscitate the unconscious baby.
Fire Marshal Jamie Scott said :
“Our crews and police also did CPR on the child, got return of circulation and transported the child to VCU Medical Center.
“Emotions were definitely heightened on this call”, Scott added.
The baby was later released after being found with a small amount of water in his lungs, ABC 8 reported.
Kuykendall was pulled from the river by a rescue boat crew and taken to John Randolph Medical Center for treatment with non-life threatening injuries.
"We got her on the boat and we headed back to shore because we knew she had been in the water an unknown amount of time for at least five to ten minutes, and we were concerned about her medical conditions," Lt. Michael Lanford of the Hopewell Police Department said
The temperature of the river was about 46 degrees at the time the woman and baby went into the water, The Progress-Index wrote.
Criminal Investigations are underway to further look into what happened that morning. Hopewell police are seeking more information from anyone with knowledge leading up to the incident.
Meanwhile, Kuykendall has not yet entered a plea and it is still unclear whether she has retained an attorney who can speak on her behalf.
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