A Washington County emergency services captain is facing criminal charges after a video emerged in which his school-aged daughter can be heard coughing and gagging after allegedly pouring dish soap into her mouth after getting angry with her at her home in Brunswick, Maryland. last month, according to court records.
The video was taken by an older sister who said she had always struggled with her father and wanted to help her two younger sisters, according to court records.
Michael Maurice Hayter, 43, of Moore Spring Court, was charged with second-degree child abuse and three counts of second-degree assault, Frederick County District Court records show. Hayter, who posted an unsecured bond of $5,000 on September 14, is scheduled to hold a preliminary hearing in district court on October 13.
Hayter is on an “administrative assignment” pending resolution of the case, Washington County government spokeswoman Danielle Weaver said Thursday. As a captain in the county office of fire and emergency medical services, Hayter works in advanced life support, is a device operator and has supervisory duties, Weaver said. The office is part of the Washington County Division of Emergency Services.
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Rockville, Md., attorney Rene Sadler, who specializes in Maryland Child Protective Services cases, is representing Hayter.
“At this time, we have no comment on Mr. Hayter’s case other than to say that we look forward to zealously defending these allegations in court,” Sadler said in an email.
Gary Cline, a detective with the Brunswick Police Department, said in a criminal complaint that he received a phone call Aug. 31 from a worker with the Frederick County Department of Social Services regarding the investigation.
Cline met with a social services worker later that day and received an email with two photos and a video. He opened one of the photos which showed “a thin red mark with a straight edge” on Hayter’s daughter’s bottom. Cline said he could also see another similar mark on her.
The girl has an older sister of school age and another older sister.
What do we hear in the video?
Cline watched the video, which he said first showed what appeared to be a counter and the image darkened. Then Cline said he could hear a young child crying and a man shouting “get up, get up.”
“The child screams and the male repeatedly tells him to ‘open up,'” Cline said.
The child is then heard coughing and gagging, he said in the complaint.
Cline said she met with the social services worker, Hayter’s three daughters and two others at Baker Park in Frederick to talk about the case.
On a previous occasion, the girl told Cline and the social worker that her father had put liquid soap in her mouth before going to the gym.
In the recent August 28 incident, the girl said her older sister watched her while her father went to the gym a short distance from his house where the incident took place. The family planned to go to a swimming pool near the gymnasium later in the day, and the girl told investigators she got upset because she couldn’t find a bathing suit that fit her. She said she wanted to choke, according to the complaint.
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His younger sister, who was also at her father’s house during the incident, said her older sister didn’t know what to do after the younger one made the comment, so the older sister called her father.
“Help me, he’s going to kill me”
Hayter tried to speak to his youngest daughter on the phone, but the daughter said nothing, according to the complaint. He told her that if she didn’t apologize, he would come home to spank her and put soap in her mouth, the complaint states. The older sister said her younger brother was worried and told him “please help me, he’s going to kill me”.
The youngest daughter said that when her father came home, he grabbed a ruler and pushed her onto her stomach on a sofa. He put one of his legs over hers, held her hands with one of his and spanked her. He then grabbed her by the hair, dragged her across the floor, and put soap in her mouth. The daughter said she also had soap in her nose and in her eyes and when she spat it out, her father put more.
The second sister said she heard her father threatening to put soap in her sister’s mouth and beat her. At one point, he was sitting on her with the soap and “pouring it down her throat,” according to the complaint.
Investigators asked the older sister if there was any other time her father might have been physical with his younger daughters. She said yes, when the family visited Busch Gardens Water Country USA on August 13. During the visit, Hayter became angry with the youngest and dragged her by her hair into a hotel room, according to the complaint.
The father defends himself to the investigators
The social services worker contacted Hayter at least twice during the investigation, including on Sept. 6, according to the complaint. Hayter told her he was frustrated on August 28 because he thought his kids would have arrived at the pool that day after a while.
Hayter said he spanked his youngest daughter but used his hand. He said he grabbed some liquid soap and threatened to put it on his daughter’s lips, but she dropped it.
“Mr. Hayter said none of this is true, it’s just his ex-wife trying to get custody of the kids. Mr. Hayter said they went swimming and everything was fine,” Cline said in the complaint.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Mail: Brunswick, MD first responder charged with child abuse
