Published on May 19 | Updated on May 20
PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The parents of a newborn in Berks County are facing homicide charges after police said the baby suffered fatal, traumatic injuries while in a private room with the couple in the maternity ward.
It was around 11 a.m. on May 2 at Tower Health Reading Hospital in West Reading, prosecutors said, when the hospital staff realized a baby boy was struggling to breathe, just 10 hours after his birth.
“The child initially appeared healthy,” said Berks County District Attorney John Adams. “The birth was a normal birth. The child was in the room, a nurse had just checked on the child. The parents were in the room alone with the child, and something happened.”
Adams said nurses were already concerned about the behavior of the child’s father, Kevin Canaan, 28, of Reading. “His behavior was so out of sorts that they called for security and they called for a social worker,” he said.
At that point, hospital staff noticed the baby was pale, limp and rasping for breath. “The injuries were described by the pathologist as almost just pushing his organs so hard that they were up against the child's spinal cord,” explained Adams.
Doctors desperately tried to save the baby’s life. He was transferred to neonatal intensive care and then flown to the Penn State Hershey Medical Center, but he died the next day.
Canaan and the child’s mother, Yeniffer Tavarez-Cepeda, 25, have been charged with homicide, aggravated assault and endangering the welfare of children.
The details of the assault are unknown, according to Adams, but police know it happened when the family was alone in a private room in the maternity ward.
“We have conducted numerous interviews of both individuals, and we may not ever know who actually caused the injuries,” he said, “but what we do know is that nobody even tried to stop the baby from being injured or notified medical authorities that the baby was in distress.”
Canaan and Tavarez-Cepeda are both being held without bail.
