The infant’s mother told investigators she had been hesitant about the visit and provided video showing the child before Jenkins picked her up.
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — The first time a 3-month-old girl was left alone with her father became the focus of a homicide investigation after the baby was rushed to a hospital with severe injuries and died three days later, according to accounts of Indiana court documents. Police arrested 24-year-old Curtis Jenkins after the child’s mother, doctors and apartment surveillance recordings helped investigators reconstruct the hours surrounding the emergency.
For detectives, the timeline began before the 911 call. The baby’s mother said she had not previously left the infant alone with Jenkins and had been reluctant to do so, according to published descriptions of the court records. She also gave police a video that investigators said showed the child appearing healthy shortly before Jenkins picked her up. That evidence did not answer what happened afterward, but it provided authorities with a reference point as they tried to determine when the baby sustained the injuries doctors later documented.
The mother also told detectives that Department of Child Services investigations had involved Jenkins’ other children, one reason she said she had reservations about leaving the infant with him. The reports reviewed for this article do not disclose the findings or outcomes of those earlier inquiries, and no conclusion about them can be drawn from their reported existence. Investigators nevertheless included the mother’s concerns in the case record as they examined the circumstances surrounding what she described as the first occasion on which Jenkins cared for the baby without her.
Hours later, the focus shifted from a family handoff to a medical emergency. At about 12:40 p.m. July 18, Indianapolis police and paramedics responded to a Station Street residence in northeast Indianapolis for a welfare check involving the child. Jenkins told responders that his daughter may have become too hot while they were driving because his car did not have air conditioning. According to court-document accounts, he said he noticed the baby overheating, tried to give her water and eventually called 911 because she was not breathing normally.
The child was transported to Riley Hospital for Children, where physicians identified injuries that authorities said were inconsistent with overheating. A doctor reported three brain bleeds, retinal hemorrhaging, broken ribs and extensive hemorrhaging along the child’s spine, according to the records cited by news organizations. Those findings moved the investigation away from Jenkins’ account of a heat-related emergency. The baby remained critically ill for several days before dying July 21, turning an investigation into serious injuries into a homicide inquiry.
Jenkins told detectives he did not know how the baby had been hurt, according to the court-document accounts. He insisted that he would not injure his children and said that if he learned someone had put their hands on his daughter, he would harm that person. Investigators ended the interview after Jenkins invoked his right to counsel. The available reporting does not include a later interview in which Jenkins explained the medical findings, nor does it include a public defense response addressing the prosecution’s evidence. His initial statements therefore remain one part of a larger disputed record.
Police next examined surveillance recordings from the apartment complex, evidence that gave investigators a way to assess what happened during part of the time the mother was absent. Authorities said the recording captured the infant crying while Jenkins repeatedly yelled at her. Investigators quoted him telling the baby to “shut up” and, at another point, saying, “You keep crying” and “I don’t want to deal with you.” The recordings also contained noises police described as thuds, smacks and the sound of a car seat being dropped. Those interpretations are allegations presented by investigators and have not been adjudicated.
What the cameras could not necessarily show directly, investigators tried to reconstruct from the audio and the events that followed. Court-document accounts said authorities heard a prolonged period of crying that they characterized as sounding painful. Later, Jenkins allegedly called the infant’s name in a manner police believed suggested he was trying to rouse her. The published material does not establish that surveillance video visually captured the specific conduct that caused every injury. Instead, police appear to have treated the recordings as one piece of circumstantial evidence to be considered alongside the hospital findings and timeline.
The investigation also produced an unusual detail: police said Jenkins had contacted the apartment property manager about obtaining the surveillance footage. Investigators later secured the recording themselves. The significance prosecutors may ultimately assign to that contact is not established in the available material, and the mere act of seeking video does not prove criminal responsibility. In the investigative narrative, however, the footage became important because it supplied an independent record of sounds and statements from a period when Jenkins was allegedly the only adult caring for the child.
By the time the baby died July 21, the case had several layers of evidence that investigators believed pointed in the same direction. The mother described the infant as healthy before the visit. Jenkins described a heat-related problem. Doctors documented injuries they said did not match that explanation. Surveillance recordings allegedly captured anger directed toward the crying child and noises investigators considered significant. Police then arrested Jenkins on a preliminary murder charge. Each of those elements will still be subject to the rules of evidence and legal challenge if the prosecution proceeds toward trial.
The case has since appeared on the Marion County court docket. An Aug. 14 docket lists State of Indiana proceedings involving Curtis Jenkins under case No. 49D30-2607-MR-022662. The public docket entry shows that a criminal matter remained active weeks after the initial arrest. The sources reviewed here do not establish the complete charging instrument, Jenkins’ plea, whether additional counts have been filed or the date of any eventual trial, so those details remain outside the verified record used for this article.
The mother’s account gives this case its defining chronology: a baby she said had never before been left alone with Jenkins was handed over appearing healthy, then was critically injured within the period investigators examined. That chronology is an allegation to be proved, not a verdict. Jenkins is presumed innocent unless convicted. As of Aug. 26, the infant’s July 21 death remains the subject of the Marion County criminal case, and no final adjudication was identified in the material reviewed.
Author note: Last updated August 26, 2026.