Mom Faces Murder Charge After Death of Her Infant

A Garden Grove woman who has been charged with murder in her baby girl’s death told police that the infant fell from a 31-inch changing table, a prosecutor said Friday.

Kongsamay Tran, 24, was arrested on murder charges Thursday, five days after her baby died in a Riverside County intensive-care facility. The baby had been comatose since May 11 with a massive skull fracture and consequent brain damage.

“Considering that this was a 3-week-old baby the severity of the skull fracture was really quite shocking,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Jo Escobar. The girl also suffered a broken leg, which prosecutors say resulted from a twisting action, and a fractured shoulder.

Tran and her husband, Bruce Tran, took their baby to Garden Grove Hospital and Medical Center on May 12 and told officials that the infant had fallen from a changing table.

Hospital officials notified police, who arrested Kongsamay Tran several months later on child endangerment and child abuse charges. She was rearrested on suspicion of murder after the baby died Saturday, Escobar said.

“It is virtually impossible to envision a scenario as described by Mrs. Tran as causing all of those injuries,” Escobar said. “The baby was only 3 weeks old and had no medical problems. A fall could have caused all these injuries, but not from the height that she’s describing.”

According to Escobar, the mother has maintained that the baby fell off the changing table when the couple’s son, then 18 months, tugged on a blanket. Escobar said Tran told authorities that she had turned her back for seconds to throw the dirty diaper in the trash can when the fall occurred.

Escobar said investigators concluded that Bruce Tran was not present during the incident.

Kongsamay Tran is being held at the Orange County Women’s Jail on $250,000 bail.

Neighbors described the couple as quiet and kind, and said Bruce Tran, a construction engineer, sometimes spoke of the couple’s sick baby girl.

“He said he didn’t know what happened to her,” one neighbor said. “He said she had diarrhea and then vomited some blood.”

Kongsamay Tran is scheduled to be arraigned on murder charges in Orange County Municipal Court on Monday.