Police say medical findings, surveillance recordings and the baby’s condition before the emergency contradicted the explanation given when responders arrived.
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — When emergency crews arrived at a northeast Indianapolis residence on July 18, the explanation they received pointed to an overheated baby in a car without air conditioning. Within days, however, doctors, detectives and surveillance recordings had transformed the case into a homicide investigation, and police arrested 24-year-old Curtis Jenkins in connection with the death of his 3-month-old daughter.
The change in the investigation centered on the gap between Jenkins’ account and what physicians found at the hospital. Jenkins told authorities he had been driving with the infant when she became too hot, according to published descriptions of court documents. He said he tried to give her water and later called 911 when he realized she was not breathing normally. Police and paramedics had been sent to a Station Street home at about 12:40 p.m. for a welfare check. From there, the child was taken to Riley Hospital for Children in critical condition.
At the hospital, the case took a different direction. A doctor reported three separate brain bleeds, bleeding in the baby’s retinas, broken ribs and extensive hemorrhaging along the spine, according to the court-document accounts. Medical personnel told investigators that the injuries were not consistent with a child simply becoming overheated in a vehicle. The published reports do not provide a complete autopsy or final medical-examiner report, so they do not answer every medical question surrounding the death. But the findings described by the treating physician gave police a basis to investigate possible inflicted injury.
Detectives questioned Jenkins about that discrepancy. He said he did not know what had happened to the baby and maintained that he would never hurt his children, the records said. During the interview, he also said he would harm anyone he learned had put their hands on his daughter. When Jenkins asked for an attorney, investigators ended the questioning. That step left police without a further statement from him explaining how the injuries doctors had identified might have occurred. The available reporting does not contain a later defense explanation or an attorney’s response to the state’s allegations.
The next investigative turn came from the apartment complex rather than the hospital. Police obtained surveillance recordings that they said captured portions of the period when Jenkins was with his daughter. According to investigators’ descriptions, the baby could be heard crying while Jenkins repeatedly yelled at her to stop. Authorities said the recording included Jenkins telling the infant, “You keep crying” and “I don’t want to deal with you.” Elsewhere on the recording, police reported hearing thuds, smacking sounds and what they believed sounded like a car seat being dropped.
The surveillance material did not function like a direct eyewitness account of every event. Instead, police used it to build a sequence. Investigators described a period of sustained crying that they believed sounded painful and later said Jenkins could be heard calling his daughter’s name as though he were trying to wake her. The record, as summarized in published reports, does not say that the camera clearly showed the act that caused each documented injury. That distinction matters because a court will ultimately have to decide what the recordings demonstrate and how much weight they should receive alongside the medical evidence.
Police also looked backward in time to determine the baby’s condition before Jenkins took her. The child’s mother told investigators that this was the first occasion on which Jenkins had ever been alone with the infant, according to the court-document accounts. She provided a video that investigators said showed the baby appearing healthy shortly before she was picked up. The mother said she had been hesitant about leaving the child with Jenkins because of Department of Child Services investigations she understood to have involved his other children. No findings from those earlier matters were detailed in the reporting reviewed here.
That combination allowed investigators to compare three different versions of the same narrow period: the mother’s account of the child before the visit, Jenkins’ explanation after the emergency and medical evidence gathered once the infant reached the hospital. Surveillance recordings supplied a fourth source of information. Police also said Jenkins had contacted the apartment property manager seeking the footage before investigators obtained it. Authorities have not publicly established in the reports reviewed here why he sought the recording, and the contact itself should not be treated as proof of criminal conduct.
The baby remained alive during the first stages of the investigation. She was hospitalized after the July 18 response and died July 21. Her death elevated the potential criminal consequences of what detectives were examining. Indianapolis police then announced Jenkins’ arrest on a preliminary murder charge. A preliminary allegation reflects law enforcement’s basis for an arrest; it does not resolve what prosecutors can prove. Jenkins retains the presumption of innocence, and disputed evidence can be challenged through the court process.
The case did not end with the initial police announcement. A Marion County court docket for Aug. 14 lists Curtis Jenkins as a defendant in a State of Indiana criminal proceeding with case No. 49D30-2607-MR-022662. That entry provides a later public marker showing that the matter had proceeded into court after the July investigation. The docket material reviewed for this report does not provide enough information to state every formal count, any plea entered on Jenkins’ behalf or the schedule for later hearings, and those matters remain subject to the court record.
The evidence described so far also leaves questions that cannot be answered from the published probable-cause accounts alone. The exact medical cause and mechanism of each injury have not been independently established here. The significance of individual sounds on the surveillance recording remains an investigative interpretation unless accepted by a court. And while the mother’s video is described as showing a healthy-appearing infant, appearance in a recording is not a substitute for a medical examination. Those limits do not erase the evidence police cited, but they define what remains to be litigated.
What is clear is how dramatically the case changed after the first call for help. An apparent overheating emergency was followed by hospital findings that doctors said did not fit that explanation. Detectives then located recordings they believed captured Jenkins angrily responding to the infant’s cries, while the mother supplied evidence about the baby’s condition before the visit. The child died three days after the welfare check, and a criminal case against Jenkins remained on the Marion County docket in August. No conviction or final finding of guilt was identified as of Aug. 26.
Author note: Last updated August 26, 2026.