A pediatric visit six days before the emergency became a key reference point as detectives reconstructed when a Florida infant was injured.
HOLLYWOOD, Fla. — Six days before a 7-week-old girl arrived at a South Florida hospital with devastating head injuries, a pediatrician had examined her and documented no significant injuries or major health concerns, according to investigators examining the child’s later death.
That Oct. 8, 2025, examination gave detectives a recent medical reference point as they tried to determine what happened to the infant before her mother, Gracie Jai Tellez, called 911 on Oct. 14. By the time doctors at Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital evaluated the baby, authorities say the child had a traumatic brain injury along with additional injuries involving her skull, eyes and spine. Specialists told investigators the pattern was consistent with nonaccidental trauma. Tellez and the child’s father, Robert Lee Ingram Jr., now face aggravated manslaughter of a child and child neglect charges.
The medical evidence is at the center of the case because authorities have not publicly identified which parent, if either, directly caused the injuries. Instead, investigators allege the child was seriously hurt while she was in the parents’ care and that neither adult provided an explanation matching what doctors found. Both defendants are presumed innocent, and the allegations contained in police records have not been established at trial.
The emergency began shortly before noon Oct. 14, when Tellez reported that her daughter was cold, pale and not responding. Hollywood police officers began CPR after arriving at the family’s home on Farragut Street. Fire rescue personnel continued emergency care and transported the infant to the hospital. Doctors there found injuries far more serious than anything documented at the pediatric visit less than a week before.
Reports describing the arrest affidavit said physicians identified skull fractures, bleeding in both eyes, detached retinas, hemorrhaging along the spine and extensive brain trauma. Medical specialists told police the findings were consistent with nonaccidental head trauma involving blunt force and violent movement. The baby’s condition did not improve. She was declared brain dead on Oct. 18 and remained on life support until Oct. 22, when support was discontinued in connection with organ donation.
The Broward County Medical Examiner’s Office later concluded that the child died from complications of blunt head trauma and classified the manner of death as homicide. That classification is a medical determination that another person’s act contributed to the death. It does not identify a suspect, determine criminal intent or decide whether any particular defendant committed a crime. Those questions fall to investigators, prosecutors and ultimately the courts.
Against that finding, the pediatric examination from Oct. 8 took on greater importance. Investigators said the doctor who saw the child considered her healthy and had not documented injuries like those discovered after the 911 call. The medical examiner also described the infant as well-developed and well-nourished for her age. Those observations did not establish the exact moment the injuries occurred, but they helped police focus on what happened in the days after the checkup and especially during the period immediately before the medical emergency.
Detectives first tried to reconstruct those hours through the parents. Authorities said Tellez and Ingram initially told police the baby had been acting normally, had been given a bottle and was later placed in a bassinet. The parents said she was discovered unresponsive afterward. Investigators reported that neither adult described a fall, accident or other event they believed could account for the injuries physicians documented.
Police said Ingram’s timeline became less consistent as the inquiry continued. According to reports citing the affidavit, he gave different accounts about when the child was fed, when she went to sleep and how many times she was removed from or returned to her bassinet. Detectives later asked him to participate in a reenactment at the residence, where investigators said he provided another sequence of events. Those differences became one reason police looked for evidence that did not depend on memory or verbal accounts.
The search then turned to the parents’ cellphones. Tellez and Ingram had told investigators that they sometimes used FaceTime between their phones as a makeshift baby-monitoring system. One device could be left near the child while the other allowed a parent to see or hear her remotely, according to the explanation police said they received. Investigators obtained warrants to examine the devices and said the forensic records did not show the FaceTime connection the parents had described during the period at issue.
What investigators found instead was extensive digital entertainment activity. Ingram’s phone showed Call of Duty use from about 5:12 a.m. until 8:39 a.m., according to reports describing the records. A second gaming period ran from about 10:33 a.m. until 11:49 a.m. Tellez’s phone also showed extended game use during the late morning, ending at about 11:52 a.m. Her emergency call was placed around 11:53 a.m. Police also reported YouTube use during overnight hours.
The significance of those records, investigators said, was not simply that two adults were playing a game. Detectives used the data to challenge the couple’s account of how the child was being monitored and what the adults were doing during the hours before the call for help. The affidavit said forensic downloads showed that information provided by the parents was “not truthful,” according to reporting on the document. The records gave police fixed timestamps they could place beside the evolving statements.
The medical and digital evidence therefore served different roles in the investigation. Doctors supplied information about the nature and seriousness of the child’s injuries. The pediatrician provided a recent point at which no similar injuries had been documented. The phones offered a record of the parents’ activity. Interviews gave detectives the couple’s versions of events. Police then evaluated those pieces together rather than relying on one finding to explain the death.
Investigators also considered the physical setting of the family’s residence. The affidavit, as described in local reporting, said police believed the size and layout of the home made it unlikely that an event severe enough to cause the baby’s injuries could happen without both parents being aware of something. That assertion supports the probable-cause case against the defendants but remains subject to challenge as the criminal proceedings continue.
Police did not arrest the couple immediately after the child died. The investigation extended across the remainder of 2025 and into 2026 while detectives gathered records and developed the case. Arrest warrants were issued July 27, 2026. The U.S. Marshals Service later assisted with efforts to locate the parents, who were arrested in Jacksonville on Aug. 7 and returned to Broward County.
The delay between the death and arrests reflects the number of separate questions detectives were trying to answer. Investigators had to compare the timing suggested by medical evidence with statements from two caregivers, examine digital records and determine whether the evidence supported charges against one or both adults. Publicly reported portions of the affidavit do not identify a confession or eyewitness to the injury-producing act. The prosecution instead alleges culpable negligence by both parents while the child was under their care.
That means the medical timeline remains important but does not provide every answer. A healthy pediatric examination on Oct. 8 does not reveal exactly when between that visit and Oct. 14 the child was injured, nor does it identify who inflicted the trauma. What it did provide investigators was a documented condition close in time to the emergency, against which they could compare the severe injuries discovered at the hospital.
The defendants’ cases are now moving through Broward County court. On Sept. 4, Circuit Judge Edward H. Merrigan Jr. allowed Tellez to post a $15,000 bond after hearing testimony from her mother. Ingram remained jailed without bond at that time, according to local reporting. Neither custody decision resolves the accusations, and the evidence concerning the child’s injuries and each parent’s legal responsibility has not yet been decided at trial.
Author note: Last updated September 22, 2026.