Red Wing man charged with causing 2-month-old’s death

A Red Wing man is behind bars and facing charges alleging that he caused the death of his 2-month-old son.

Court records show that 27-year-old Hunter Matthew McCutchen was charged Friday with two counts of first-degree manslaughter, two counts of second-degree manslaughter and child endangerment.

The charges stem from the death of his infant son earlier this week.

According to court documents, the child’s mother took her 4-year-old to preschool Tuesday morning and left the infant with McCutchen. When the mother returned home with the 4-year-old shortly after noon, McCutchen was holding the infant, saying the child wasn’t eating.

The mother told police she noticed the child was limp at that time but he still looked OK. However, within 10 minutes, McCutchen yelled and she saw the child was pale and blue.

They performed CPR on the infant until officers and medics arrived and took the boy to a hospital. While roughly an hour of CPR was unsuccessful, medical staff suddenly detected a heart rate after the decision was made to stop CPR, and the infant was then airlifted to another hospital and remained in the pediatric intensive care unit until he died early Thursday morning, court documents state.

The criminal complaint states that medical personnel conducted tests and found that the infant had multiple bilateral rib fractures in various stages of healing, as well as a clavicular fracture that suggested non-accidental trauma. Imaging also showed multiple brain bleeds.

The child’s mother told authorities that she’d recently started noticing some bruising and marks on the infant over the past month and had some pictures that documented the various injuries. She added that she worried McCutchen was going to cheat on her again while she was gone Tuesday morning so she activated some of the cameras inside her apartment.

Wednesday night, the woman called police and said that McCutchen admitted he was responsible for the infant’s injuries and she recorded a brief conversation with him that caught McCutchen saying he shook the infant once and put his hand over the child’s mouth.

When the child’s mother asked why he did that, McCutchen responded, “I don’t know, I just got so overwhelmed and I didn’t, I wasn’t thinking, I don’t know, I wasn’t thinking,” the complaint states.

If convicted, first-degree manslaughter carries up to 15 years in prison, second-degree manslaughter carries up to 10 years in prison and child endangerment is punishable by up to a year in jail.

McCutchen’s first court appearance was scheduled for Friday morning and his next appearance is set for next month.