A Griswold mother is under arrest after state police say she admitted to smothering her 6-week-old baby with a blanket and leaving him in a baby swing all day, believing he was dead.
Emergency crews responded to 35-year-old Crystal Czyzewski's Slater Avenue home November 17 after she called 911 to report her baby was barely breathing, looked pale, and that "stuff was coming from his nose." according to the arrest warrant application.
The baby was rushed to Backus Hospital in Norwich before being taken to Connecticut Children's in Hartford where he arrived in cardiac arrest.
Doctors there were able to resuscitate the 6-week-old boy but he died on Sunday, police said.
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State police detectives interviewed Czyzewski Monday and she initially told them she put the baby in a swing and left with a friend to go for a walk. She later told the detectives that the story wasn't true and that her mother told her to lie about what happened, according to the arrest warrant application.
Police say Czyzewski later told them the infant and her 5-year-old child were both crying and it was "too much." She admitted to placing a blanket over the baby's face while he was in the swing and then placing her hand over the blanket and the infant's face for 20 minutes until she believed he was dead, according to the arrest warrant application. She told detectives she left the child in the swing for the rest of the day.
Czyzewski told police she and her mother decided to lie about what happened because she was afraid she would lose her 5-year-old child as well, police said. Czyzewski said her mother knew the child was not breathing but didn't know the infant had been suffocated, according to the arrest warrant application.
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The Department of Children and Families has placed the 5-year-old child with a family member, according to police.
Czyzewski is charged with first-degree manslaughter and risk of injury to a child. She was held on $500,000 and was scheduled to appear in court Tuesday.
