A Spencer County woman has been arrested after a monthslong investigation and charged with felony battery and neglect of a dependent after Indiana State Police say she left a 3-year-old child with life-threatening injuries.

Ariel Ragan, 31, of Rockport, was taken into custody on Monday, state police said in a Tuesday news release. She faces felony charges of neglect of a dependent resulting in serious bodily injury and domestic battery.

Affidavit: Child was found unconscious

The release doesn’t include details as to what reportedly happened to the child. But according to a probable cause affidavit obtained by the Courier & Press, the incident that sparked Ragan’s arrest took place almost seven months ago.

On July 20, police went to a home on North Orchard Road after a receiving a report of a 3-year-old having a seizure after hitting his head on a wooden floor.

One of Ragan’s neighbors had called 911 and said they found they found the child lying a few feet inside Ragan’s home. The victim’s face had turned blue, they said, and they performed CPR until first responders arrived.

Ragan had reportedly asked them to come over, they said, because she told them “something was wrong” with the child.

The child was eventually taken to Ascencion St. Vincent Hospital in Evansville, where doctors discovered he had suffered two subdural hematomas as well as compression factors to a pair of vertebrae. They also noticed scratches, bruises, and what a doctor said were bite marks, likely from an adult human.

Another child claims Ragan threw victim into a wall

Five days after the child’s hospitalization, investigators spoke with Department of Child Services officials, who said Ragan was the child’s step-grandmother. The victim had to come to live with her and her family some time in May, the affidavit states.

Police interviewed Ariel’s husband on July 25. He said the child suffered from multiple health issues, and had allegedly been biting and scratching himself. He couldn’t explain the bruises.

He said there was “no way” Ariel could have hurt the child because if anything arose with the kids, she called him, the affidavit states. He said Ariel told him the child had been “walking and fell.” Ariel repeated a similar story to several other people police interviewed, but sometimes the details changed.

When investigators asked to speak with Ragan, her husband reportedly said he had power of attorney over her due to a learning disability. Police still attempted to talk to her, but she quickly demanded her attorney be present.

Investigators then conducted multiple interviews with other juveniles who lived in the home. They described the victim as a quiet and well-behaved child who liked to play by himself behind the couch.

Some of the juveniles said the victim’s scratches came from the family cat, while another said they witnessed Ragan scratch the child.

Over the next few months, police spoke with multiple other witnesses. In December, they conducted a follow-up interview with one of the juveniles.

According the affidavit, the juvenile eventually said they’d seen Ragan throw the victim into the living room wall. They saw the child “sleeping on the floor” afterward, they said, and when investigators showed the juvenile pictures of the room and asked them where the victim had been “sleeping,” the juvenile reportedly pointed to the same spot where the neighbors found the victim on the day of the incident.

“(The juvenile) said she did not hear anything when (the victim) was thrown, but that he fell asleep and went to the hospital,” the affidavit states.

The juvenile said Ragan was the only adult in the home at the time.

Ragan faces the two Level 3 felony charges mentioned above, as well as a Level 6 charge of domestic battery in the presence of a child less than 16 years of age. Prosecutors filed the charges on Jan. 31, but didn’t take Ragan into custody until Monday, four days after a warrant was issued for her arrest.

Her initial hearing was scheduled for Wednesday in Spencer County Circuit Court, court records state.

This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: ISP says So. Indiana woman left child with life-threatening injuries