Father Contends Baby Died Accidentally, Mother Says : Investigation: Woman alleges that homicide suspect has struck her and her children in the past. She’s undecided as to whether infant daughter was dropped by accident.

A father charged with homicide and child abuse after his infant daughter died of a skull fracture last weekend told his girlfriend that he had dropped their baby accidentally, she said Thursday.

Aurora Jaimez, 20, also said that in the past year and a half that she has lived with Octavio Pantaleon, 22, he has hit her children, including a 4-year-old and a 6-year-old, on the backside and hands for disciplinary reasons and has hit and bruised her. But she never worried that he would use excessive force, she added.

“He says it was an accident, and I don’t know if that’s true. But if it wasn’t, then I want him to stay in jail,” said Jaimez, who has been staying at her mother’s apartment since the weekend.

The trouble started about 6 p.m. Saturday when she and Pantaleon argued and she went to the bathroom to cry, she said.

When she came out, he was hitting the backside of 10-month-old Kristal Monique Pantaleon, trying to revive the unconscious baby, Jaimez said.

The couple panicked and tried to rub alcohol on the little girl’s chest, without result. So Jaimez then called 911.

“Later, I asked him what happened, and he kept saying he was sorry but it was an accident, that he had dropped her,” she said.

Paramedics found Kristal in full cardiac arrest at the couple’s apartment on East Pine Street and took her to Western Medical Center-Santa Ana. She was put on life support, but hospital officials told the parents that their child was already brain-dead, Jaimez said.

Police interviewed the couple in separate rooms. Based on their statements, officers arrested Pantaleon early Sunday morning at the hospital on suspicion of attempted murder and child abuse. Jaimez was not cited, and the investigation is continuing, Sgt. Art Echternacht said.

That afternoon, Jaimez allowed doctors to take her baby off the life support system. Kristal died about 2:30 p.m. at the same hospital where she was born.

“I can’t bring her back, and I do miss her a lot,” Jaimez said.

Pantaleon was arraigned Monday. He is being held in lieu of $250,000 at Orange County Jail.

Meanwhile, Jaimez’s 4-year-old son, Roger Anthony Ramirez, was placed in the Orangewood Children’s Home in Orange. The 6-year-old lives with Jaimez’s mother.)

“We haven’t seen him,” Jaimez’s sister, Martha Ramos, 21, said of Roger. “We just talked to the social worker, and they said he’s probably so traumatized from seeing what happened that he needs counseling.”

The service for baby Kristal is scheduled at noon at the MacDougall Family Mortuary, 1610 E. 1st St. in Santa Ana. Burial will follow at 2 p.m. at Holy Sepulcher Cemetery, 7845 E. Santiago Canyon Road in Orange.