Dad charged with daughter’s assault

A 29-year-old Spokane man was arrested and charged with the November assault of his 4-month-old daughter just moments before a Monday custody hearing in which he was going to argue to get his injured daughter back.

Spokane police detectives arrested Juvenale “Juve” J. Dacosta Jr. without incident at the waiting room outside Spokane County Juvenile Court, Sgt. Dave McCabe said. Dacosta was booked on one count of assault of a child in the second degree.

The case started Nov. 22 when the infant, Taryn Dacosta, was taken to Rockwood Clinic and X-rays showed the girl had suffered 18 broken ribs, two broken legs and a fractured skull.

“In my opinion, and the opinion of the physician at Rockwood Clinic, this saved the child’s life by finding the fractures and getting an investigation initiated,” McCabe said.

Taryn was released from Sacred Heart Medical Center the day after Thanksgiving and was placed in the care of Child Protective Services. She is expected to make a full recovery, McCabe said.

“Knowing that the community wanted an arrest, knowing that we wanted an arrest, it was difficult to slow down and make sure that we did things right,” McCabe said. “We didn’t want to go out and shoot for a quick arrest just to make ourselves look good.”

Dacosta declined a request for a jailhouse interview Tuesday night.

Dacosta had been unemployed and was staying home with Taryn and his 3-year-old son. The boy showed no signs of abuse but told a Sacred Heart security guard that “his parents are mean to him and he wanted a new mommy and daddy,” according to court records.

Dacosta’s 29-year-old wife, Jessica Dacosta, works in Post Falls. She has continually cooperated with investigators and has been ruled out as a suspect, McCabe said.

“I have no information on motive,” McCabe said. “I would always like to think that the motive was an instantaneous reaction out of frustration rather than some type of malice he had towards the child. I couldn’t imagine a parent reacting this way out of malice.”

Detectives Greg Vandenberg and Jeff Harvey investigated the case. Juve Dacosta initially spoke with Vandenberg, but then he invoked his right to an attorney and would not speak to detectives on the record, McCabe said.

Juve Dacosta “never made any statements that implicated himself but rather tried to come up with alternative theories as to how the injuries occurred,” McCabe said. “He suspects that possibly one of the family’s pit bulls caused the injuries, either by trampling the child or by jumping in the crib as the child was in the crib. None of the doctors that were interviewed felt the dogs were the likely cause of these injuries.”

The fractures appeared to have occurred twice, once when Taryn was about 2 months old and again when she was 4 months old, McCabe said.

“There did not appear to be any outward injuries. In fact, the reason that the child was taken to the doctor in the first place was she had just been really fussy and Mom couldn’t figure out why,” McCabe said.

Staff at Rockwood Clinic discovered the fractures to both lower legs and the right femur. Taryn had nine ribs broken on each side of her rib cage, McCabe said.

“One incident of shaken baby syndrome could have resulted in the rib fractures and the leg fractures from the whipping motion from being shaken,” McCabe said. “I’m not sure about the skull fracture. I’m not a doctor.”

After gathering the evidence and interviewing several medical experts, Vandenberg and Harvey prepared charging documents and Superior Court Judge Jerome Leveque signed the arrest warrant Monday morning, McCabe said. Dacosta “made no statements to us and was arrested without incident,” McCabe said.