Goodrich toddler in ICU, suspect jailed
Polk County Enterprise - November 2007
BY VALERIE REDDELL
Editor

LIVINGSTON ­— A  1-year-old boy is in intensive care at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston with his jaw fractured in two places and trauma to the back of the head and Polk County Sheriff’s Deputies are investigating how the child and his 2-year-old sister were injured.

The children’s mother found them injured in their Goodrich home when she returned home from a Conroe hospital at midnight Tuesday morning, Lt. Craig Finegan said.

The two toddlers had been picked up from day care earlier in the evening by the woman’s boyfriend, Jay Westerman, 27, who lives in the house with the woman and the two children.
Westerman has been arrested and charged with one count of injury to a child with serious bodily injury and another count of injury to a child. He remains in the Polk County jail under bonds totaling $750,000.

The children were taken to Memorial Medical Center-Livingston by EMS shortly after midnight. The boy was transferred to UTMB. Hospital officials told Finegan that they expect the boy to survive his injuries.

District Judge Robert Hill Trapp issued a search warrant for the residence Tuesday and PCSO called DPS crime lab technicians to the scene for assistance in the investigation.
Finegan said no weapon other than an adult’s hands appear to have been used.

Investigators gathered DNA evidence from the suspect’s hands which will be sent to the crime lab for analysis.

Westerman reportedly picked up the children from day care Monday after their mother called and asked him to leave work on an oil rig because she needed to go the emergency room.

The suspect visited with her at the hospital before picking up the children.

When she was released and returned home she found the suspect “passed out” and the two children injured at her home and called 911.